Guild Wars 2

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

That’s the problem. They probably had more than one camp. One group saying, look, we said this, and another group saying, okay what can we do that would help that we can do in a timely manner and is guaranteed to work.

That still doesn’t address the problem of them insisting that they haven’t changed their course when everyone can see that they did.

Okay, so a publisher says thousands of things and five of them change. I see you hold people to this high standard of behavior that probably isn’t attainable within a corporation.

I suspect you’ll end up frustrated with much of your business dealings. People are people, not machines. In companies you sometimes have to two the party line. That’s life in big business…and that’s pretty much all big business.

You may not like it. Hell, I don’t like it, but I should as hell have learned that that’s how things are.

Is it right? Not at all. It is what people really should be expecting from businesses. Pretty much.

Calae.1738:

Vayne.8563:

I think there are more people running dungeons too, because they want the ascended mats that come from them. My guild is doing far more dungeons now than they were a couple of weeks ago. Mind you that could have been because of the zone wide invasions too.

Thats an interesting statement, do you think they’re running dungeons because they want to or because they have to?

Even people who like to run dungeons only run dungeons for so long before they get bored of them. They forget how much fun they can be. Many people had already stopped running most of them.

Sometimes people are their worst enemies. There are people in my guild who had no interest in dungeons because they were bored of them…but not they’re finding them fun all over again.

My answer is that everyone is different…but I always have fun in dungeons…since I don’t pug and my guild is hysterical.

Spiral Architect.6540:

Vayne.8563:

You can eat your steak if you want.

For a short while, perhaps. Once ascended armor comes out, they’ll start tuning content to that gear level. Then, when the next tier of gear comes out, they’ll tune to that. And so on. Pretty soon, that steak will be off the menu.

In one short year, they went from "Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.” to “Here, everyone: chase the shiny lewtz, just like you did in all those other games.” ’Tis a shame.

Enjoy your tuna noodle casserole.

I don’t believe there’ll be a next tier of gear. Simply put, the game will have enough stickiness by then where it won’t be necessary.

I guess the question is, a year down the road, how does this all play out? For how long will someone have that advantage? How much difference does it make long term.

I’m not so sure we can answer that yet, but I suspect it’s not as much as people think.

This is sort how I feel. After trying WoW, Rift, Lotro, Aion, AoC and a bunch of others, this is the one MMO I feel I can stomach. Not high praise I know, but most MMOs make it very hard for me to get into my character.

I mean I liked the first 20 levels of AoC, but felt that the game changed when I got past that point. I liked Rift until I hit level cap and realized the entire game funneled you into dungeons and raiding. I liked Lotro, except for the cash shop and grind (people think this game has grind…they have no idea lol).

At the end of the day, Guild Wars 2 is far from perfect, but for my play style, other games are further from perfect….a lot further.

I haven’t stopped going for achievements, but I’ll let them go a lot more easily now. I just do the ones I’m interested in.

I think there are more people running dungeons too, because they want the ascended mats that come from them. My guild is doing far more dungeons now than they were a couple of weeks ago. Mind you that could have been because of the zone wide invasions too.

byjiang.1260:

Vayne.8563:

Spiral Architect.6540:

IndigoSundown.5419:

There was a recent consolidation of threads about Ascended into a 20 page thread that I can no longer find.

You can’t find that thread because, after 20 pages of comments (and not a single response from anyone at ANet) it was deleted. That thread is gone, completely ignored.

You are right, Vayne. This game has changed. It is as though I went into a restaurant and ordered filet mignon, then in the middle of the meal, the waiter came back, took away the filet mignon and gave me tuna noodle casserole.

Not quite an accurate analogy those. The fillet mignon is still on the menu.

The hearts are still there. The dynamic events are still there. The dungeons are still there. WvW is still there.

All the things the game lauched with are still there (except there have been some major improvements, including stuff like being able to preview weapons in the marketplace, the account wallet, and the culling fix).

This stuff wasn’t taken away from the game and people still play and enjoy it.

What happened was you paid for a meal, you ate the meal and now the restaurant has expanded and offered a whole lot of different meals that you don’t like.

People do play this game and ignore the daily and have fun. You can eat your steak if you want.

Except the people who order new stuff are now taller than you. By 0.5 cm. But still.

Sure, but it took a year to happen. If you haven’t gotten your money’s worth by now, that sorta sucks, but what can you do? There are still people playing and liking this game.

Spiral Architect.6540:

IndigoSundown.5419:

There was a recent consolidation of threads about Ascended into a 20 page thread that I can no longer find.

You can’t find that thread because, after 20 pages of comments (and not a single response from anyone at ANet) it was deleted. That thread is gone, completely ignored.

You are right, Vayne. This game has changed. It is as though I went into a restaurant and ordered filet mignon, then in the middle of the meal, the waiter came back, took away the filet mignon and gave me tuna noodle casserole.

Not quite an accurate analogy those. The fillet mignon is still on the menu.

The hearts are still there. The dynamic events are still there. The dungeons are still there. WvW is still there.

All the things the game lauched with are still there (except there have been some major improvements, including stuff like being able to preview weapons in the marketplace, the account wallet, and the culling fix).

This stuff wasn’t taken away from the game and people still play and enjoy it.

What happened was you paid for a meal, you ate the meal and now the restaurant has expanded and offered a whole lot of different meals that you don’t like.

People do play this game and ignore the daily and have fun. You can eat your steak if you want.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

But I’m saying that for the dev, it wasn’t the focus. They might not even realize how strong that was, or how important it was to the game design from the perspective of players. Again, when you take the game as a whole, there’s a lot going on. What are the odds your priorities and the devs are identical?

There’s been a huge amount of uproar and “discussion” centered around gear. It started with the, “Nothing to work for, no endgame, no progression” posts last fall, went through a huge outcry about Ascended that prompted an AMA to respond, and has been an ongoing issue since. There were many threads about dailies — which would not have been an issue except for laurels. There was a recent consolidation of threads about Ascended into a 20 page thread that I can no longer find. Since the Ascended weapon pre-patch blog, there have been a lot of pro and con threads/posts.

Statements about the role of gear, exotics being top tier, max stat gear being easy to get and horizontal/cosmetic progression being the motivation to continue playing were important enough to be seen as selling points pre-launch.

If Colin is unaware or only peripherally aware of how important this subject is, then he’s not doing his job as Game Director. Suggesting that the Game Director is not aware of the details surrounding a controversial issue that is dividing community opinion is either disingenuous or insulting to his professionalism.

I’m not talking about aware now. I’m talking about aware when he first spoke those words. Those threads weren’t around then. You’re comparing something he said way pre launch to something that is now occurring post launch.

People simply aren’t forgiving.

There’s not a person here who hasn’t said something that hasn’t been misunderstood, or hasn’t changed their mind or hasn’t forgotten something they’ve said months later. Not one person.

But everyone is willing to point a finger and say he lied. He’s a liar. Well, he might well be a liar. And he might not be. The direction of the game definitely did change, but how strongly that direction was etched into the minds of the devs…that’s not clear. For all we know there was wild debating behind the scenes.

I never attribute to malice something that can be explained by lack of realization or coordination or focus. They’re all problems. But one of those problems is malicious and intentional.

Anet lacks focus and they’re terribad at communication, but that’s not quite the same as lying. And if they were going to change things, there was no real reason to say that in the first place. They would have known it would come back to bite them.

Kaizer.7135:

Vayne.8563:

Kaizer.7135:

kokiman.2364:

stof.9341:

Also, nobody gets 450 Mithril while leveling from 1 to 80 unless they go out of their way to gather as much as possible.

Just as a reference, when I reached Level 20 in GW1 I wasn’t even close to my first set of max armor + max weapons.

I’m sorry, but you’re TERRIBLE if you couldn’t get max weapons or armor in GW1 at level20 since they literally cost like 1platnium each.

This is simply wrong. In Prophecies, you got to level 20 LONG BEFORE you had the option to buy max armor, which you could first get from Droknar’s Forge. I was level 20 long before I reached Droks. At that time, I didn’t have 5k.

Maybe by the time I reached Droks I did…who even remembers.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Oroku

Sells max armor for 1k a piece, we’re not just talking about Prophecies here but GW1 as a whole.

I’m talking about Prophecies, because at this point in time Factions had just come out on the same time scale. In two more years, I guarantee you all this stuff will be a lot easier to get. It was the same way in Guild Wars 1. Stuff gets introduced and everyone says OMFG I’ll never get that…but then suddenly everyone starts showing up in it.

I’m just trying to compare apples to apples. If you want to compare Guild Wars 1 to Guild Wars 2, after you could solo farm the Underworld on a rit, be my guest, but it’s a terrible comparison. I’m comparing Guild Wars 1 one year in to Guild Wars 2 one year in.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Guilds 2? More like Party Chat 2 because that’s all guilds serve you for.

Unless you happen to like Guild Missions which some people apparently do. Oh and it’s not bad to be in a guild for WvW either. For that matter, running dungeons with my guild is a whole lot more fun than running dungeons with pugs.

One or two. Early on they were so easy to get, just playing got them for you. These days most of the time, by the time I’m done playing I usually only have one left. In fact, I usually get all the PvE dailies every day, even more than the five required.

Infernia.9847:

Vayne.8563:

I watched the same videos you did, probably as much or more than you did. Again, when Anet was making the game, they thought the bulk of people could adapt to just cosmetic rewards. They found out otherwise.

I’m not sure how else I can say it. We don’t have their metrics. But do you really think Anet woke up one day and said, I got it! I’ll make a change that will kitten off our strongest and best fans.

Because I don’t think it went down that way.

No I don’t think it did either. But I do think they could have handled all of it much differently and turned that gear grind mentality into something better.
I believe they had a vision that was lost in a reactionary decision to hold onto a population that may or may not have stayed no matter what they did. And as a company it is a wise decision to study your demographics, especially those that are more likely to be paying customers.
It felt like a knee jerk reaction to a particular subset of players. And of course that’s just my opinion.

I agree that it could have been handled differently. But the question is this.

If it were your millions of dollars and five years investment…how much time/risk would you have been willing to put into it to see if it might fix the problem, keeping in mind that many people who leave MMOs go back to their old MMOs and never check in again.

That’s the problem. They probably had more than one camp. One group saying, look, we said this, and another group saying, okay what can we do that would help that we can do in a timely manner and is guaranteed to work.

Once you start asking questions like that, the answers become harder.

Nikaido.3457:

Wolfheart.1938:

Ahahah that’s priceless! I particularly like the implication of you being a noob, as if Ascended gear was obtained through something a bot couldn’t do. Glad my ignore list has a lot of room. You may want to edit the name out to lessen the chance that a mod will take down the post.

The type of player seen in that screenshot is exactly what grindy mmo attract and the kind of audience I thought we wouldn’t see in gw2. People who feel the need to have some sort of “progress” in their game because it’s actually a second life for them, they live for their mmo and feel like they’re doing actual work while getting their gear and building their public image/pride. Games like WoW are literally infested with these. State an opinion about a game and it’s like you insult their mother.

Right, because there was no one like that who ever played Guild Wars 1.

BlueZone.4236:

Vayne.8563:

It’s not a “big grind”. This is silly. Two of my guildies have an ascended weapon already. You really call that a big grind?

You can talk in circles as much as you like, but really, this isn’t the mountain people are making it out to be. It’s more like a foothill.

Of course it’s not a considered a big grind to you or your guild mates, because farmers such as yourself and your two guild mates enjoy farming.

LMFAO! I’m like about as antifarming as you can get. Try again.

Kaizer.7135:

kokiman.2364:

stof.9341:

Also, nobody gets 450 Mithril while leveling from 1 to 80 unless they go out of their way to gather as much as possible.

Just as a reference, when I reached Level 20 in GW1 I wasn’t even close to my first set of max armor + max weapons.

I’m sorry, but you’re TERRIBLE if you couldn’t get max weapons or armor in GW1 at level20 since they literally cost like 1platnium each.

This is simply wrong. In Prophecies, you got to level 20 LONG BEFORE you had the option to buy max armor, which you could first get from Droknar’s Forge. I was level 20 long before I reached Droks. At that time, I didn’t have 5k.

Maybe by the time I reached Droks I did…who even remembers.

Infernia.9847:

@Vayne – I just wanted to say that when they first opened up the pre-purchase in April, I think I watched every promotional video I could find. I didn’t watch them once but several times.
At the time I was playing a Korean MMO and GW2 was going to be the one game I could finally get to max stats and just have fun and play. No more gear stat chasing but skin chasing. And I could take my sweet time doing it without ever worrying about being less than optimal. I could make multiple characters and experiment with different builds. It seemed too good to be true.
Those videos built a lot of expectation for a lot of people. Can you blame them for continually bringing the quotes up at this juncture?
We all know that Anet is a company, a business, and needs to make money. But can you honestly say that they haven’t strayed from their vision? And isn’t there a ton of different ways all this could have been handled and still stay true to the premise the original game was built upon?
I could list a bunch of amazing ideas that have been brought up in the forums and sent to suggestions subforum to die. Ideas that would have brought challenge and content while maintaining exotic stats as top tier. Things to give those in need of defined goals what they wanted without a new tier. All the while bringing in more money for Anet as some ideas involved monetization as well.
It’s all mute, I know, but this is like the second slap to the face after the first one landed blindside in November. In the grand scheme it doesn’t really matter because statistics speak no matter how loud or annoying a group may become.

I watched the same videos you did, probably as much or more than you did. Again, when Anet was making the game, they thought the bulk of people could adapt to just cosmetic rewards. They found out otherwise.

I’m not sure how else I can say it. We don’t have their metrics. But do you really think Anet woke up one day and said, I got it! I’ll make a change that will kitten off our strongest and best fans.

Because I don’t think it went down that way.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

I still say people are taking what was said too far. They stated an intention in interviews a couple of times, a year before the game launched. People burned these words into their brains. I’m not even convinced people remember what they said.

Where you see an intention I (and I’m sure others) see a fundamental principle. When fundamental principles are changed for the sake of money, the accusations of selling out are bound to follow.

Vayne.8563:

Have you ever been to a convention (which is where many of these interviews occurred). I have. I’ve sat on panels and numerous conventions.

If you asked me what I said even a couple of months later, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. It’s all a blur.

That wasn’t just one comment made in passing at a convention; that was a fundamental principle (and a selling point) driven home time and time again in videos, blogs, interviews, and at conventions.

Vayne.8563:

In the end, you can say he’s lying if you want, but I think he probably had many conversations with many people over what should and shouldn’t happen and at the end of the day, he doesn’t remember the change, because there was other conversations going on at the time in house that we’re not privy to.

What else is it if someone says, “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base.” and says a year half a year later, “we always intended to add ascended gear” (paraphrased) if not a lie? Like I’ve said before, I can live with the shifting direction of the game (even if that shift leads me to quit the game); it’s the lack of “straight-talk” that’s burning my goodwill at fast pace.

We always intended to add ascended gear might very well be true…that doesn’t mean it was always meant to have higher stats.

There’s no point arguing because you’re vested in your point of view to the point where nothing I say will make any difference.

You’re right from your point of view. Objectively…maybe, maybe not. You weren’t there, I wasn’t there, there’s no way to know.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

Oh it’s a strong argument. It’s like publishing. Many books published that did will in the 70s and 80s would never have been bought today. That’s not just my opinion…it’s a widely held opinion. The industry changed. It’s become more “commercial” (celebrity cookbook anyone?). No one wants to take the risk on new and different because the amount of the investment dollars required to compete today is much higher.

Is that not exactly what ArenaNet set out to do with Guild Wars 2? Was not this entire game built around the idea of making something “new and different”? “…and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2.” I refuse the developers were being disingenuous when they made claims like that; one of the reasons I ever invested in this game was because I believed the developers were passionate about what they were making. And this isn’t what they were making.

Vayne.8563:

Are you really trying to tell me a staff of 300 doesn’t need to appeal to a wider audience than a staff of 50? Because that’s the difference in the staff as it stood around launch time. The staff was 6 times the size. Long before this game lauched, I knew it would have to appeal to a wider audience that Guild Wars 1 did. That it would need more support from the cash shop as well.

I’m not going to pretend the revenue generated from Guild Wars would be sufficient to operate Guild Wars 2. There’s a chance it could, but I’m not privy to the operating costs of GW2 or the revenues generated by GW’s cash shop. But it’s perfectly reasonable to assume this game’s operating costs are significantly higher than those of its predecessor.

One of the weaknesses in your argument, though, is the assumption that they wouldn’t or couldn’t have made more than enough money from their player base if they’d never added ascended gear (which is symbolic of a shifting philosophy about what they want this game to be). You’re supposing the people who wanted ascended gear would have left without it. You’re supposing the people who didn’t want ascended gear will stick around with it. You’re supposing the revenue generated wouldn’t have been sufficient to turn a healthy profit either way. You’re basing [part of] your argument on an awful lot of suppositions.

Are you suggesting you or I have better or more metrics than Anet does for their own game?

I sincerely believe they intended to have grind for cosmetic gear only. I also believe that they expected people to take longer to get exotic gear.

Their metrics suggested people weren’t biting, so they compromised. That’s it. It’s lousy. I don’t love it. A lot of people don’t love it.

But I find it very hard to believe that Anet would “betray” their entire core player base if they didn’t feel it was necessary based on the metrics they possessed.

stof.9341:

Vayne.8563:

They didn’t decide to do it till after they saw the low uptake on legendary weapons. Sometimes it’s not possible to warn someone, because you didn’t know you’d be doing it.

This is going in circles XD

Why then do they pretend it was their intention from the start to have BiS be a big grind?

If someone answers again that “it was their intention from the start, we just badly interpreted what they said” I’ll get angry.

It’s not a “big grind”. This is silly. Two of my guildies have an ascended weapon already. You really call that a big grind?

You can talk in circles as much as you like, but really, this isn’t the mountain people are making it out to be. It’s more like a foothill.

tolunart.2095:

Kreslin.6832:

But maybe Blizzard will surprise me with their new project “Titans”.

Wasn’t Titan cancelled? I thought I read something about that a while ago… Titan cancelled, EoN a money pit when one of the companies involved imploded, ESO postponed until next year…

The market is pretty well saturated and almost all recent games have changed horses midstream, going from sub-based to FTP and so on. GW2 is actually a rare success for the genre.

Titan wasn’t exactly canceled. Most of the staff was laid off and it’s being reworked from scratch though. It might as well be canceled.

I’m thinking Anet has about a year to shore this game up before the next big game comes along.

stof.9341:

Still, you cannot go from "We want everyone on an equal power base” to “Exotics were far too easy to obtain compared to our plans” which means “BiS items should take a lot of work to obtain” with nothing between to warn us of the change of plans.

Of course, warning us of such a change might have lost them the sales of many GW1 fans so they weren’t about to tell us I guess?

They didn’t decide to do it till after they saw the low uptake on legendary weapons. Sometimes it’s not possible to warn someone, because you didn’t know you’d be doing it.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

One, I don’t see compromise as selling out. If this was a full on gear grind (and I don’t see it that way), you’d be right. But it’s a compromise. Anet tried to please everyone and probably didn’t end up pleasing anyone..but I see why they did it.

The compromise was already built into the game. Exotics where BiS and they were easy to obtain (by design, hence “everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game…”). Legendaries were rare and desirable items that were included in the game to give those who wanted “something to do” something to work towards. The compromise was that Legendaries like exotics, were BiS. The addition of ascended gear renders this compromise obsolete; and I fail to see how it establishes a new compromise between those who don’t want a grindy game with gear treadmills and those who.

Vayne.8563:

Secondly, Guild War 1 can’t be compared. It was 8 years ago. The amount of competition today, the free to play games, it’s just not a congruent situation. Guild Wars 1 had a programming team of 50 programmer.s Guild Wars 2 has to support 300, in larger headquarters.

Saying something was done 8 years ago in this market means nothing to what can be achieved today. With the amount of competition out there now, Guild Wars 1 would have had like six guys playing.

I’d probably have been one of them, but it would have never stood the test of time. It was too cerebral for the masses.

As someone who has been both with and against you on various discussions over the last year I’ve come to expect a stronger argument from you than that. The market may have changed over the last eight years, but the fact is Guild Wars thrived, and it didn’t do so in a vacuum.

Oh it’s a strong argument. It’s like publishing. Many books published that did will in the 70s and 80s would never have been bought today. That’s not just my opinion…it’s a widely held opinion. The industry changed. It’s become more “commercial” (celebrity cookbook anyone?). No one wants to take the risk on new and different because the amount of the investment dollars required to compete today is much higher.

Are you really trying to tell me a staff of 300 doesn’t need to appeal to a wider audience than a staff of 50? Because that’s the difference in the staff as it stood around launch time. The staff was 6 times the size. Long before this game lauched, I knew it would have to appeal to a wider audience that Guild Wars 1 did. That it would need more support from the cash shop as well.

You may not accept my argument but that doesn’t make it week. 8 years in this industry is almost an eternity.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Yes, that’s a big difference. As big as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant.

Anet saw the uptake of legendaries wasn’t working. They saw what people were saying. Believe it or not, they have many ways to judge who is doing what. My son, as I’ve said before, got his legendary and stopped playing. Now that ascended is back so is he, working on his ascended. For every guy like me, there’s a guy like him.

Anet made a decision before the game launched, saw that decision wasn’t quite working as they intended and changed the way they did business, kitten ing off the people who bought the game thinking it would be one way in the process. Anet did the same thing as adding meat to a vegetarian restaurant. There’s no real difference here.

What Anet tried to do was compromise. Not everyone is happy with the compromise and some people can’t live with it, but I’m wagering the bulk of players can….certainly the bulk of players that are playing now.

Which leaves a small, vocal disenfranchised group who aren’t going to stop complaining until the game loses money. There’s a whole lot of people playing the game right now. I’m not sure that would be true if ascended gear hadn’t been introduced.

The difference to me is the more recent claim that they never intended what we were told was the intention back then. I expect companies to adapt to evolving circumstances and difficulties. I can respect it even if the evolution does not play to my own interests. I do not respect a decision to treakittens customers as if they were idiots by expecting us to buy the claim that they never intended X when they told us that X was the intention when they were trying to sell us on the game.

The decision to abandon the original declared intent in this case would be much more palatable, to me at least, if Anet would man up and just admit that they were doing so rather than trying to claim that the original intent never existed.

I do want to clarify that I am not in any way attempting an attack against you for your stance on this matter. I respect your right to have and express your opinion.

I still say people are taking what was said too far. They stated an intention in interviews a couple of times, a year before the game launched. People burned these words into their brains. I’m not even convinced people remember what they said.

Have you ever been to a convention (which is where many of these interviews occurred). I have. I’ve sat on panels and numerous conventions.

If you asked me what I said even a couple of months later, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. It’s all a blur.

But once you say it, and people record it, to them it’s front and center. Someone answering a question or stating an intent might very well look back and not even remember saying it. The same thing has happened to me. I’ve been very surprised by some of what I’ve said.

As the game evolves, the perception evolves. To you, it’s the most important answer in the world. To Colin he was answering a question at a con as best he could at the time.

In the end, you can say he’s lying if you want, but I think he probably had many conversations with many people over what should and shouldn’t happen and at the end of the day, he doesn’t remember the change, because there was other conversations going on at the time in house that we’re not privy to.

There are two ways to do this. One is to trade missions. Meaning one triggers it and both guilds attend, then the other guild triggers theirs, and both guilds attend. People will get rewards only for the ones that they’re attending for their guild. Because you can only get 1 personal reward per type of mission per week.

So if you get guild commendations for a bounty, and do another bounty you don’t get another guild commendation.

The other way guilds help each other is if they happen upon each other while doing the same mission.

Sometimes when we’re doing a rush, and you have to get 15 people through, the other guild gets some and we get some and both guilds get credit for the win.

darkace.8925:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

jayb.1329:

so….you want the strongest gear possible and you want it to be easy to get.

sounds like the typical complainer on these forums

Read my signature.

If I’d had time, I’d make a signature that says all MMOs evolve and change and Guild Wars 2 is no exception.

I could go to ANY MMO, no exceptions, and find a dev quote that isn’t true a few months after it’s made.

Your signature is meaningless.

So, everyone bullkittens so its ok for ANet to bullkitten too.

rofl

And yes, read my signature.

And gear treadmill is not evolution its devolution.

No, everyone doesn’t bullkitten. Every business reacts to the needs/desires of the largest share of their customer base…of they’re out of business before you know it.

If I opened up a vegetarian restaurant and I had 10 good customers and on one else, I’d go out of buiness. If I started serving meat, I’d lose those 10 good customers. They’d get mad at me, they’d curse me, they’d say I betrayed them, they say I lied.

Of course, those ten good customers weren’t about to volunteer to pay all my bills. So the can say anything they like and from their perspective it would be true, if ungenerous. From my perspective, I’d have a viable business, that was there for other people who might enjoy my style of cooking.

You say this as if it’s “sell out of bust”. The fact that Guild Wars did well enough to warrant a sequel is proof selling out isn’t the only way to stave off financial ruin. And you make it sound as if maximum profitability should always dictate game development. That’s the exact kind of thinking that lead to a half decade (or more) of soulless World of Warcraft clones.

I’m not going to crucify ArenaNet for selling out – and let’s be clear here, that’s exactly what they did – but that doesn’t mean I’m not extremely disappointed they sold their vision for this game down the river for the sake of appeasing a crowd of gamers that very well could end up jumping to the next flashy AAA MMO the moment one’s released.

One, I don’t see compromise as selling out. If this was a full on gear grind (and I don’t see it that way), you’d be right. But it’s a compromise. Anet tried to please everyone and probably didn’t end up pleasing anyone..but I see why they did it.

Secondly, Guild War 1 can’t be compared. It was 8 years ago. The amount of competition today, the free to play games, it’s just not a congruent situation. Guild Wars 1 had a programming team of 50 programmer.s Guild Wars 2 has to support 300, in larger headquarters.

Saying something was done 8 years ago in this market means nothing to what can be achieved today. With the amount of competition out there now, Guild Wars 1 would have had like six guys playing.

I’d probably have been one of them, but it would have never stood the test of time. It was too cerebral for the masses.

TooBz.3065:

No one knows if the game is gaining or losing subscribers except ANet. To speculate on it is a waste of time. Can’t we go back to wasting time whining about ascended gear or whining about whining about ascended gear?

Edit: Also, Vayne, I think TC is a bit unique in terms of servers. A lot of people guest over there to PvE. I checked several times this weekend and Orr was dead on CD.

You may be right about TC being unique, because a lot of people guest to it. But then, if everyone is guesting to it, and there are ten, fifteen overflow servers, then there’s still a lot of people playing. I’ve been in a group with five guildies that were all on different overflows. Someone must be playing.

As for knowing if the game is gaining or losing subscribers, well we do know that. It’s neither gaining nor losing, because there are no subscribers. And that’s where the problem lies. In WoW, Blizzard uses subscriber numbers to indicate the game’s health (even though they game that by using people who bought say the annual passport, even if they’re not longer logging in as active), while Guild Wars 2 has to depend on income and concurrency numbers.

You’re right, no one really knows if the game is doing better or not. Not me and not the naysayers.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

First of all, I never said the game was gaining in popularity.

Nuh-huh

Vayne.8563:

In the meantime, I think this game is gaining popularity, not losing it.

Nough said.

Exactly like ANnet PR.

Read my signature.

Ah there we go. I had to go back to find the quote. Nothing like taking something said out of context. We were talking about something very specific when I said that. You have to take the whole quote, including what I was responding to.

Now, it was your claim (with no basis whatsoever in fact) that the game is losing popularity based on decisions made recently by Anet. And it was my claim that over that same period in time, I was experiencing more people in world, thus, it was gaining in popularity. I’ve maintained the game was gaining in popularity since last November.

But in reality, it was parroting your words back at you, because you have absolutely no proof it’s losing popularity. None whatsoever. You have a opinion, you state it as fact, you bait people to contradict you then bring up their statements out of context later and call it spin.

With regards to recent changes, it is my belief there are more people playing, not less. Is it gaining in popularity overall since launch? No, that I don’t think so.

I’ve said in other places, I think Guild Wars 2 is becoming a niche game, and within that niche more people are picking it up. Therefore, I’m experiencing more people in game, relative to how many people I used to see in game.

Ootarion.6192:

oshilator.4681:

You have got to be kittening joking.

I’ll file this under “More Evidence That This Playerbase Will Whine About Anything.”

So its wrong for me to point out a flaw and give a potential solution then? You dont belong on the forums if you think its wrong for me to voice my opinion about something that really is a flaw. If they just make it so that an initial for the server your own is next to your name then it would be much better then having to add a last name, so instead of say Luna, it would be Luna-GM, GM standing for Gates of Madness if the character originates from Gates of Madness. It would simplify things and remove the need of using a last name.

No. It’s simply wrong to use hyperbole. This is a minor annoyance. Titling your post “horrible flaw” instead of titling it, my comment about naming immediately makes your post a target.

I have a problem with people overstating things. I’ve been on these forums for a while now and I think since launch I’ve only seen one other person bring it up. And they got pretty much the same reaction you have.

Why not try moderate language next time, instead of sensational language. You’d probably get more support.

Neural.1824:

Vayne.8563:

If the only thing in this game to you is a legendary weapon…probably time for you to move on.

Vayne.8563:

Find a guild with like minded players, then, and play your way.

Which is it, Vayne? First you tell him that if he wants to play his way, the game isn’t for him, then you tell him to play his own way.

My second response was to his comments about not being able to play his way. My first response was to the idea that having something was the entire game. All responses are relative.

If someone were trying to play baseball and they told me they hated the game because they couldn’t .bat 350, I’d tell them there’s more to baseball than just a high batting average.

If someone tells me they’re not enjoying GW 2 because they can’t get a single item, I tell them they’re ignoring the rest of the game. The item isn’t the game. The game is the game. The item is something you get for playing it.

However, he responded to me, and I responded back to him. It’s called a conversation. If you take away the context, of course it sounds wrong.

Meglobob.8620:

Vayne.8563:

Meglobob.8620:

Seen a thousand+ of those threads…Anet love it, constantly congratulating themselves on creating such a good money sink with the MYSTIC TIOLET…where players flush there gold down every day…

I don’t really lose much from the mystic forge. I throw in golds every now and again…and never got a precusor. But I’ve gotten some very cool exotics that aren’t percusors. It’s not really all that expensive when I do the math. I’m close to breaking even.

And since I’m only using drops, and event rewards and such, it’s not like I’m spending gold on it.

Well, you are spending gold really because you could have sold those drops for gold couldn’t you? So if you factor that in, you will have lost with the mystic toilet unless you have a considerable amount of luck and are one of the few who get a precursor or valuble exotic from a low number of toilet flushes…

Its actually for more effective to farm pure gold, save up and just buy what you want. Rather than risk the mystic toilet.

No, I sell the exotics often for more than I’d have gotten for the golds. It’s not quite breaking even, but it’s relatively close.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

And the only thing that changed since last year is ascended gear, amirite?

rofl

game is not gaining popularity, unless you redefined gaining popularity to mean: you sell 5% of what you sold before.

I’m totally amazed by this statement. You’re talking about something I happen to know something about, from business. Entertainment products, particularly games, sell 90% of their total in the first three months of their life. It’s pretty well known in the industry. That’s because those who REALLY want it, buy it right away, and that leaves those who aren’t interested, or might eventually become interested. Naturally that number is going to be smaller as a game’s life advances.

You can pick up any piece of software and with VERY few exceptions (maybe something like Skyrim), 90% of the sales occur in the first 3 months.

Guild Wars 2 sold 3.5 million copies more than any other MMO besides WoW, and more than WoW in the same time period. That makes it fairly successful.

What the business model is based on is how many people are spending money in the cash shop and how many people are playing the game now. Many people have come back..some of those have probably left again. But the bottom line is, if the company wasn’t making money, they couldn’t have four times working on living story content. I wouldn’t constantly be on overflow servers either.

You see, youre not making any sense, especially related to what you quoted.

Next time concentrate on what you quote instead of ranting and PR.

My experience with gaming has to do with being a game buyer for a computer store. I know very well how well games sell. Maybe you should do some research. It’s interesting stuff. You’d quickly learn that my figures are accurate.

Uh-huh rofl

When you redefine “popularity”, sure, anything can stick.

But again, i like how you, on your own accord…dismiss your own claims

And again, concentrate on what you quote, since you STILL havent adressed what you quoted back then one may call that a spin

I don’t understand a word you’ve said. Maybe in your desire to insult me, you dropped a decimal place or something. You should recheck your calculations maybe.

TL;DR:

Vayne (V): GW2 is gaining popularity
MikaHR (M): no it isnt
V: long diatribe about irrelevant stuff aka spin
M: thats irrelevant to the quote
V: i haz teh numberz
M: still irrelevant
V: kitten , spin didnt work

there you go

Ah, I see. So you really don’t get it.

First of all, I never said the game was gaining in popularity. That’s your words not mine. I said the game is busier now than it was back in November. That’s a bit different.

A lot of people who used to play have come back to the game. I don’t know how many or what percentage. I do know that I’m on overflow servers far more than I used to be.

What I am saying, that is completely pertinent is that game sales are NOT the way to tell if a game is popular or not, particularly after the first three months. The only real way in a game like Guild Wars 2 to tell whether it’s more or less popular is concurrency numbers. According to Arena Net concurrency has been going up steadily since Christmas. That’s obvious a relative vague statement.

But citing falling sales for a game to try to say how popular it is is definitely a form of spin.

Xista.7391:

Vayne.8563:

Xista.7391:

I guess I’m a bit disappointed that we won’t get any sort of story content for at least a month now. SAB is for a niche audience, and Tequatl isn’t new content – just a revamp.

Don’t get wrong, I’m glad that the bosses are getting a revamp because I do them occasionally, but I probably won’t have much interest in the game until new story comes out. (I could be wrong, maybe Tequatl revamp is a precursor to something larger).

I think Guild Wars 2 is spoiling you. Most games don’t have stories that advance every month. That’s quite a lot. A month off from the story advancing is probably what most of us need right now.

It allows me to get back to other stuff in the game I enjoy but haven’t had time for.

Yeah it may be spoiling me, but weren’t we promised Living Story updates biweekly? Or is that just something that happens most updates, or is the term being used loosely now. (actual question as I don’t have a source).

My guess is that this is just an intermission between living story chapters, I hope. We already know how all of the living stories tie together now (Scarlett), but she’s ran off for now with no indication of making an appearance any time soon. We’ll probably start off on another story tangent and she’ll make an appearance where we learn about her motivations. That’s just my speculation anyways.

We were promised updates. You’re identifying the living story with the plot of one living story. This is all living story. It’s about changing the world and keeping it fresh and always having something else to do.

But we weren’t guaranteed continuation of scarlet’s story. The living story is simply updates every 2 weeks to keep things interesting. And that’s all it is.

It’s also because of guesting. Any player can guest to any server.

wmtyrance.3571:

On my server for the past week I’VE noticed everyone seems to be in LA. The game world itself is empty. I kept running into group events with no one but me around. With all the changes with gear and empty world, I have a bad feeling about the future of this game. I think the temp.content they are adding is a big waste of time now. They need to start fixing the main games problems and stop wasting time with other crap.

Maybe everyone from your server is guesting to my server. If you think no one is playing, try one of Scarlet’s zone invasions, or look at the temple events in Orr. I haven’t seen so many people in Orr in ages.

Xista.7391:

I guess I’m a bit disappointed that we won’t get any sort of story content for at least a month now. SAB is for a niche audience, and Tequatl isn’t new content – just a revamp.

Don’t get wrong, I’m glad that the bosses are getting a revamp because I do them occasionally, but I probably won’t have much interest in the game until new story comes out. (I could be wrong, maybe Tequatl revamp is a precursor to something larger).

I think Guild Wars 2 is spoiling you. Most games don’t have stories that advance every month. That’s quite a lot. A month off from the story advancing is probably what most of us need right now.

It allows me to get back to other stuff in the game I enjoy but haven’t had time for.

Calae.1738:

I’m personally okay with it, because I don’t chase stats. I don’t think about stats much. I don’t care much about stats. I’m not a min-maxer and never will be. Let’s pretend that I don’t have ascended gear and you do. Yay. I don’t care. So this doesn’t bother me personally. I certainly can see why other people are bothered.

You might be right.

The casual market might not chase the carrot but the hardcore market does. If another studio siphons away the hardcore market from GW2; I believe the casual market will follow them.

Who are hardcore players?

-WvW commanders
-Guild leaders
-Fan site creators
-Character build theorycrafters
-Mix-Max experimenters
-PVE/PVP teamplay strategy designers

Can you make a game just for a casual crowd and have them hang around after all the hardcore, passionate crowd leaves? I don’t think so.

I don’t buy this at all. I run a guild and I still don’t care about stats. My guild has 120 members. Not a huge amount, but we’re relatively active. We have our guild missions twice a week. We do other stuff together.

The thing is, if all the hard core people left today, the game wouldn’t be significantly worse for me. It wouldn’t make much difference to me.

I just bang around having fun. I can do that with our without hard core people.

Hell, I don’t think most casual players even belong to guilds.

Find a guild with like minded players, then, and play your way. Because you can. That’s what a lot of people in my guild do. Not all of them are around enough to get all the achievements, but we still have fun hanging out and doing stuff.

And we help people get achievements, because it’s more fun to play with people than alone.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

I was pretty unhappy with the ascended gear changes too, not for myself, but for everyone else. I felt let down that there was so much to do to get one. But then I started breaking it down and looked at how much work it actually was. If you really hate dungeons it probably sucks quite bad. World events are quite fast and easy so I don’t see that as a big a problem.

But after hearing Colin’s Pax interview, the whole thing sat a bit easier with me. I still don’t love the idea. But I felt at least he was explaining the why it was done and that did make it easier for me. It felt a bit like the old Guild Wars 1 patch notes.

Exotics were just too easy to get….based on what they had originally intended. For Guild Wars 1 players this seems like a strange statement, but I’ve always known that this game would need more of a sustained player base to support than Guild Wars 1 would. I’ve said this many times.

So yes, I can accept the ascended gear…because it really doesn’t take as long as you think.

The funny bit is, it’s actually, in some ways, easier to make money now that it has ever been, because even some of the low level mats now have value again. It’s another stream of revenue for people who don’t care about getting an ascended item. You can get the mats and make the items without leveling all the way to 500 (you only have to get to 450) and you can still enjoy everything in the game, because the ascended gear won’t stop you from playing.

But yeah….it’s a dark day for Guild Wars 1 fans who were looking forward to an actual sequel.

That’s an interesting take on a rationale. You are OK with Ascended gear because " it really doesn’t take as long as you think." Are you thinking that the grind ends with Ascended? They said explicitly that we would have vertical progression going forward on a low power curve. When they made that statement they also said they had no plans for another tier of rarity and would carry VP forward through power upgrades to existing (ascended) gear.

My question to you is are you OK with this? Your grind will not stop when you have Ascended in all slots. I have all the quotes on that, but I believe you read the AMA as well so won’t give them here. For me, the issue has never been ascended gear and whether or not it is easy to obtain. My issue is chasing stats forever. And, it will be forever as long as we have vertical progression in the game. Yes, they could stop it at any point, but they have made no statements at all as to their intention. All we know is there will be VP going forward on a low power curve.

I’m personally okay with it, because I don’t chase stats. I don’t think about stats much. I don’t care much about stats. I’m not a min-maxer and never will be. Let’s pretend that I don’t have ascended gear and you do. Yay. I don’t care. So this doesn’t bother me personally. I certainly can see why other people are bothered.

It bothered me far more not to get a frog scepter in Guild Wars 1 (I ran bog root growths so many times it would make your head spin), than not having an ascended weapon. It might be different if I thought the skins were cool though. lol

This whole stat thing you have doesn’t bother me at all, so if they slowly add more gear, it won’t essentially change my game…but I can see why it would annoy the hell out of you.

Meglobob.8620:

Seen a thousand+ of those threads…Anet love it, constantly congratulating themselves on creating such a good money sink with the MYSTIC TIOLET…where players flush there gold down every day…

I don’t really lose much from the mystic forge. I throw in golds every now and again…and never got a precusor. But I’ve gotten some very cool exotics that aren’t percusors. It’s not really all that expensive when I do the math. I’m close to breaking even.

And since I’m only using drops, and event rewards and such, it’s not like I’m spending gold on it.

Morrigan.2809:

Vayne.8563:

But this one strut wasn’t nearly as important as say, creating a living breathing world. That was front and center. Dynamic events, that was front and center. Even the personal story, that was front and center.

.

that was the strength of the game at launch.

Even though they have since added Living Story to support the idea of a living breathing world- I feel that it doesn’t really have that effect in the game.

They have certainly moved away from DE’s and the personal story.

To me it feels like the game never actually developed it’s original ideas- instead they went for a formula that has been around for ages and many of us are tired of.
Honestly I think that is the reason for most of the anger.
for a while there we had what we wanted only to watch it evaporate in front of our eyes only to be replaced by McDonald’s

I’m not disagreeing that this was a strength in the game. I’m not saying it’s not better.

I’m saying that the focus of the devs, the import of that one thing, might be completely different from how important it is for people who crave that sort of thing. Sure it made the game great for a lot of people. I don’t disagree with this at all.

But I’m saying that for the dev, it wasn’t the focus. They might not even realize how strong that was, or how important it was to the game design from the perspective of players. Again, when you take the game as a whole, there’s a lot going on. What are the odds your priorities and the devs are identical?

Kaizer.7135:

Vayne.8563:

Kaizer.7135:

Vayne.8563:

Kaizer.7135:

People whine because Anet gives them things nobody asked for instead of what they want. How long have people been asking for a LFG in game? Revamped dungeons and Champs? Hell, even the loot was terrible for months. People wanted fun, interesting end game, what they got was a grind for Ascended gear. Pretty sad, I can understand where most of the whine comes from.

I’m pretty sure that people asked for a lot of the stuff Anet has given us. For every person who said we want an LFG tool, someone in that thread said, no worries just use gw2lfg.com, it’s no problem. For every person who said we want revamped dungeons and champs, someone was complaining dungeons were too hard and there wasn’t enough stuff in the open world.

What you’re really saying is they didn’t do what you wanted. They’ve certainly addressed a lot of the people complaining about loot issues. The LFG tool is coming in less than 2 weeks. They’re addressing concerns. They just didn’t drop everything and address them all at once.

I don’t give 2 kittens if they don’t add a LFG function or Revamped dungeons/bosses. I don’t PvE unless I need gear for WvW or lvl alt’s. Also, people don’t want to use a third party program for something that should be in game. I thought that was obvious.

It’s obvious to me that some people don’t want to use a third party program and some people are fine with it. That’s because I know people who don’t like it and people who like it. It’s formed millions of groups, someone is using it.

Many games, in fact, most AAA games have lauched with an LFG tool. I have no idea why this is but it’s true. SWToR launched without one, Rift lauched without one….no idea why.

But since it’s coming out in a week or so…it’s hardly something to argue about now.

And they’ve already solved the loot problems, yet I still listed it in my previous comment. I don’t think you get it.

I get it. I don’t think you do. Shrugs.

I suppose that’s why we disagree. lol

Kaizer.7135:

Vayne.8563:

Kaizer.7135:

People whine because Anet gives them things nobody asked for instead of what they want. How long have people been asking for a LFG in game? Revamped dungeons and Champs? Hell, even the loot was terrible for months. People wanted fun, interesting end game, what they got was a grind for Ascended gear. Pretty sad, I can understand where most of the whine comes from.

I’m pretty sure that people asked for a lot of the stuff Anet has given us. For every person who said we want an LFG tool, someone in that thread said, no worries just use gw2lfg.com, it’s no problem. For every person who said we want revamped dungeons and champs, someone was complaining dungeons were too hard and there wasn’t enough stuff in the open world.

What you’re really saying is they didn’t do what you wanted. They’ve certainly addressed a lot of the people complaining about loot issues. The LFG tool is coming in less than 2 weeks. They’re addressing concerns. They just didn’t drop everything and address them all at once.

I don’t give 2 kittens if they don’t add a LFG function or Revamped dungeons/bosses. I don’t PvE unless I need gear for WvW or lvl alt’s. Also, people don’t want to use a third party program for something that should be in game. I thought that was obvious.

It’s obvious to me that some people don’t want to use a third party program and some people are fine with it. That’s because I know people who don’t like it and people who like it. It’s formed millions of groups, someone is using it.

Many games, in fact, most AAA games have lauched with an LFG tool. I have no idea why this is but it’s true. SWToR launched without one, Rift lauched without one….no idea why.

But since it’s coming out in a week or so…it’s hardly something to argue about now.

Scarlet needs time to lick her wounds and recover. We defeated her. Her answer is the invasions. We’re fighting them off.

The living story isn’t one thing. It’s many things. Some months we’ll continue that story, some we’ll do Halloween stuff or the super adventure box.

Variety is the spice of life.

Spiral Architect.6540:

Vayne.8563:

It’s one tiny aspect of the game to someone responsible for all aspects of the game.

One tiny aspect? No. It’s a complete about face. Calling it anything else is sheer obfuscation. I refuse to drink that koolaid.

No, I mean it. This is one tiny aspect of the game. It’s not the whole game. In order for this to be imporant, you first have to get a character TO level cap. Before you do that, there’s events to fix, there’s personal story to deal with, there are dungeons to prepare, there are festival events (Halloween was being programmed DURING launch), there are a million and one things. Saying in an interview this idea that we want all rewards to be cosmsetic is a thought bubble. It’s a concept. This isn’t the most important thing in the game to a game director. Not even close to it. The most important thing when he said those words was getting the game launched. They had some intentions.

They saw that the uptake on legendary gear sucked and came to the conclusion that people needed some stat upgrade, or they wouldn’t do it. It may well have been the wrong conclusion, considering the legendaries are a huge grind and not to everyone’s taste visually, but that’s the conclusion they reached.

But this one strut wasn’t nearly as important as say, creating a living breathing world. That was front and center. Dynamic events, that was front and center. Even the personal story, that was front and center.

What they’d do with a new tier of gear down the road, when mostly everyone was 80? When he made that statement, that wasn’t even a major concern.

MikaHR.1978:

Vayne.8563:

MikaHR.1978:

And the only thing that changed since last year is ascended gear, amirite?

rofl

game is not gaining popularity, unless you redefined gaining popularity to mean: you sell 5% of what you sold before.

I’m totally amazed by this statement. You’re talking about something I happen to know something about, from business. Entertainment products, particularly games, sell 90% of their total in the first three months of their life. It’s pretty well known in the industry. That’s because those who REALLY want it, buy it right away, and that leaves those who aren’t interested, or might eventually become interested. Naturally that number is going to be smaller as a game’s life advances.

You can pick up any piece of software and with VERY few exceptions (maybe something like Skyrim), 90% of the sales occur in the first 3 months.

Guild Wars 2 sold 3.5 million copies more than any other MMO besides WoW, and more than WoW in the same time period. That makes it fairly successful.

What the business model is based on is how many people are spending money in the cash shop and how many people are playing the game now. Many people have come back..some of those have probably left again. But the bottom line is, if the company wasn’t making money, they couldn’t have four times working on living story content. I wouldn’t constantly be on overflow servers either.

You see, youre not making any sense, especially related to what you quoted.

Next time concentrate on what you quote instead of ranting and PR.

My experience with gaming has to do with being a game buyer for a computer store. I know very well how well games sell. Maybe you should do some research. It’s interesting stuff. You’d quickly learn that my figures are accurate.

Tachenon.5270:

So… is this what the non-Living Story teams have been working on?

Updating world bosses is one of them. There’s more than one team working on other stuff.

cesmode.4257:

Vayne.8563:

You seem to think people remember every word they say and never had a change of thought. But this wasn’t a restaurant built around that one thought to Colin. This was a restaurant built around that one thought to you, and players like you.

As pointed out in another post: We remember what they say because they are the only developers that I can remember that make bold statements prior to launch about what their core game will be: Everyone will have the same power and grind less (to name a few). This is not the case anymore. And if the game was built around the players, then why do so many players hate the new changes and why are so many players on the fence about living story? So many people, in game and on forums, dislike or are uneasy about living story(yes there are a large amount of people that like it too), yet arenanet loves to say that LS is a great success in front of the cameras..when, it is not a slam dunk success. Sorry, but it isnt. Even if 30 or 40% of the playerbase are not sold on LS makes it not a slam dunk success.

They can’t please everyone, but they alienate more than they should.

They game is about the players. You’re one of the players, but there are probably a million more, give or take.

Somehow, at some point, some of the players are going to feel badly treated. It’s going to happen. Unfortunately, you’re one of them…and that’s sad. I say this genuinely. I think you’re a good guy and I wish you were happier with the game. And I understand why you’re not happier.

But you and me, we’re not the only ones here. Only time will tell if these changes are good or bad.

Spiral Architect.6540:

Vayne.8563:

<snip>

But after hearing Colin’s Pax interview, the whole thing sat a bit easier with me. I still don’t love the idea. But I felt at least he was explaining the why it was done and that did make it easier for me. It felt a bit like the old Guild Wars 1 patch notes.

Exotics were just too easy to get….based on what they had originally intended.

<snip>

I’ll quote myself from another thread:

Spiral Architect.6540:

I don’t really buy that. If exotics were truly not intended to be so easy to get, why did they make them craftable? Why did they make them available for dungeon tokens? Why did they include them in the drop tables?

And then there’s this, taken from here :

“Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.”

Colin’s statement at PAX strikes me as just spin and smokescreen, concocted to try and get people to shut up about ArenaNet’s about face on the ascended gear release.

And I’ll paraphrase myself from that thread. Developers, they’re human. They don’t have a computer chip in their head. They’re like anyone else. They have intentions that change over time (particularly in the company that claims to be centered on iteration).

So he says something during an interview. He said it a couple of times maybe a year ago. Do you know how long a year is in game development. He probably doesn’t even remember saying it. He might not even remember THINKING it.

The same thing happened to me when I ran a business. I’d say something and then a few months later say something that contradicted it and someone would call me out on it. And I’d say, well this is how it is now. Often I didn’t even remember saying the other thing.

To you, it stuck in your mind, because that’s massively important to you. It’s one tiny aspect of the game to someone responsible for all aspects of the game.