Guild Wars 2

ipan.4356:

When games fail to put out new content, then the players move to something that does.

This is a certainty.

It’s debatable whether what Anet has put out for GW2 could be called ‘content’.

Yes, the Living Story was playable content – sort of.

The first season occurred in zones that already existed – so they amounted to a couple of new enemies that suddenly appeared according to scripted events…in zones that were already there.

The Tower of Nightmares got a little more interesting, because it actually changed a zone into something new. This was perhaps the beginning of the best aspect of the Living Story.

I actually like Kessex more now with all the destruction (though, if they do it right, even that should change over time).

And, of course, culminating with the destruction of Lions Arch – which is great, because it changes an otherwise static and boring world (boring only because you’ve seen it a million times).

These sorts of changes don’t come fast enough – that is, they could up the pace on this sort of ‘cataclysmic’ (c wut i dud thar) world changing events, and that would be pretty awesome. Although if they do it wrong (just wantonly destroy a new zone every three months, for no particular reason) it could get stale too….you have to be careful, which is why you have professional writers (are there any left at Anet) build the story for it first.

I wouldn’t mind seeing something akin to LS S1 happen every two (maybe three???) months.

HOWEVER

This should be in addition to opening up at least 1 completely new map every THREE months, OR releasing an expansion that opens up 3-4 new maps EVERY YEAR.

That is new content.

Oh, also a new class once every two years. A new weapon for each class, a handful of new utilities for everyone, and perhaps a new playable race as well (Tengu and Kodan would be perfect right now – would add just the right amount of freshness to the game, and I’d probably buy another character slot or two if they did that).

THAT’S new CONTENT.

How difficult is that to understand for people? Srsly?

That’s what an expansion is. A bunch of new maps, a new class, a new race, some new skills.

It doesn’t get any more straight forward than that, and if Anet isn’t releasing something akin to this, I can promise that tons of people will go looking for it elsewhere.

That’s what people crave, and it’s the REASON why we abandoned our LAST MMO for GW2.

Why did you quite (insert MMO name here _____________) to play GW2? Because you were bored with the lack of new content?

Why is Azeroth like 3 times the size of Tyria, and has MILLIONS of players?

Sure, GW2 hasn’t been out as long, but it HAS been out 2 years, which means it’s time for an EXPANSION.

EXPAND OR DIE

Except that WoW has been bleeding players steadily now for almost four years. And Pandaria didn’t really do much to reverse the trend. I really do understand where you’re coming from. I just don’t think it’s that simple.

Essence Snow.3194:

gryph.8734:

Leo Paul.1659:

gryph.8734:

Leo Paul.1659:

I dunno why people like to refer to GW2’s entire playerbase in a thread that is specifically addressed to the community. In most games I’ve played, the community (i.e. the forums, groups, reddit etc.) is aware of its identity and distinguishes itself from the general playerbase.

Also, arguments based solely on belonging in either minority/majority is an ad populum.

I’m making no argument as to the rightness or wrongness of the feature pack based on minority/majority appeal. My assertion is merely that even if a majority of forum posters are whining about it, it does not follow that it will necessarily hurt the game. I am of the opinion that the whiners are wayyyyy overstating their individual importance to the integrity of the game, but I suppose time will tell if I’m right or not.

Your assertion is these people are overstating their importance and thus will have no meaningful impact in the game solely because they are in a minority, which is invalid in itself. I for one believe that Lilith generates more positive traffic towards the game via his/her forum events. My point is you have no reliable gauge in estimating every poster’s value and relying on ad populum isn’t gonna get you merit.

I did not say my assertion was that these people are overstating their importance. I said that it is my opinion that these people are overstating their importance. I may be correct or incorrect in the end, but my opinion is just that: an opinion. Even if they are overstating their importance they could still have a meaningful impact on the game regardless of their status as a minority or majority. There’s only one way to know for sure and that is to wait and see. Popular metrics are the only thing that can be objectively measured with any reliability, but Tyria isn’t what you’d call a “controlled scientific environment.”

You know that assertion and opinion are synonyms right?

An assertion is provable or disprovable while an opinion is neither provable or disprovable. I’m going by what I learned in high school debate rather than strict dictionary definition.

Leo Paul.1659:

gryph.8734:

Leo Paul.1659:

I dunno why people like to refer to GW2’s entire playerbase in a thread that is specifically addressed to the community. In most games I’ve played, the community (i.e. the forums, groups, reddit etc.) is aware of its identity and distinguishes itself from the general playerbase.

Also, arguments based solely on belonging in either minority/majority is an ad populum.

I’m making no argument as to the rightness or wrongness of the feature pack based on minority/majority appeal. My assertion is merely that even if a majority of forum posters are whining about it, it does not follow that it will necessarily hurt the game. I am of the opinion that the whiners are wayyyyy overstating their individual importance to the integrity of the game, but I suppose time will tell if I’m right or not.

Your assertion is these people are overstating their importance and thus will have no meaningful impact in the game solely because they are in a minority, which is invalid in itself. I for one believe that Lilith generates more positive traffic towards the game via his/her forum events. My point is you have no reliable gauge in estimating every poster’s value and relying on ad populum isn’t gonna get you merit.

I did not say my assertion was that these people are overstating their importance. I said that it is my opinion that these people are overstating their importance. I may be correct or incorrect in the end, but my opinion is just that: an opinion. Even if they are overstating their importance they could still have a meaningful impact on the game regardless of their status as a minority or majority. There’s only one way to know for sure and that is to wait and see. Popular metrics are the only thing that can be objectively measured with any reliability, but Tyria isn’t what you’d call a “controlled scientific environment.”

Vayne.8563:

You’re right, individually we’re not metrics. Collectively, metrics illustrate what we’re playing, how long we’re playing it for, how often we log in, and how often we take long breaks from the game.

We are not metrics. Our collective behavior is quantified by metrics.

And metrics are they only thing that Anet can measure in any meaningful way.

Galphar.3901:

Vayne.8563:

I’ve played Guild Wars 1, and I don’t feel the way you do. Because I recognize the reality of the situation. The gaming population isn’t what it was when people played EQ and if you make a game for us, it’s going to end up being a much smaller game, with a much smaller population.

This kind of project is ambitious. Anet isn’t a 50 person company anymore, they’ve got more than 300 employees. Realistically they have to attract more people. They’re not going to that by making the same game.

Referring to the bolded selection, perhaps that is why so many MMOs are failing so quickly now. Back in the days of EQ and UO MMOs were “niche” games and 500k subscribers was a success. Now if you don’t have at least 1mil subs then you’re considered a failure and a lot of companies think the only ways to do that a to make WoW clones with a different skin. The reason that A-net had so much success with Guild Wars was because it wasn’t a WoW clone and wasn’t just trying to make money, they made Guild Wars FOR the players and it showed.

…and then unfortunately it kind of started to unravel. The players loved Guild Wars, myself included. But Anet realized that at least from a development perspective, they couldn’t continue in that vein indefinitely. It just got too bloated. I had kind of wondered if Anet had found some sort of magic bullet of entertainment in GW2. As much as I personally enjoy GW2, it saddens me to realize that they haven’t.

Leo Paul.1659:

I dunno why people like to refer to GW2’s entire playerbase in a thread that is specifically addressed to the community. In most games I’ve played, the community (i.e. the forums, groups, reddit etc.) is aware of its identity and distinguishes itself from the general playerbase.

Also, arguments based solely on belonging in either minority/majority is an ad populum.

I’m making no argument as to the rightness or wrongness of the feature pack based on minority/majority appeal. My assertion is merely that even if a majority of forum posters are whining about it, it does not follow that it will necessarily hurt the game. I am of the opinion that the whiners are wayyyyy overstating their individual importance to the integrity of the game, but I suppose time will tell if I’m right or not.

Combination NC.9813:

50% of the character’s max level cannot really be considered a small percentage of their life.

50% by number. The curve has been changed so that you will spend significantly less time from 1-40 than you do from 41-80.

Sylv.6514:

The early game changes don’t really effect me, but I am still greatly saddened by how much they butchered it. The collection rewards aren’t worth the effort of farming so many massively expensive items either. If I don’t already have an item, it’s because I had no interest in it in the first place. I’ve been playing for 2 years. I am still waiting for more REAL content. I’m sick of these tiny living story updates that have you farm for hours on end for some insignificant items. I’ll come back when theres some significant content added, like a new class, dungeons or even plant themed legendary weapons. I’ll be migrating to archeage until then.

ipan.4356:

Archeage will be fun for a little while for no other reason that it will be completely new content.

I don’t expect it to be a great game, doubtful I’ll invest in it. But as something to keep me occupied until Star Citizen comes out – sure. It’s a bunch of places I haven’t seen yet, unlike GW2 where I’ve already seen everything, and nothing new is coming any time soon.

To be honest, I’m almost done with every game pre-Oculus Rift – I’m still waiting to see who makes the first Oculus MMO, and even Star Citizen has portions of it’s game already created for the Oculus – over time, they are planning on adding more and more (this is aside from the fact that you can just play a 2D game in the Oculus if you want – they are creating some parts of the game in 3D specifically for that environment).

GW2 had some awesome art, and to an extent a level of world immersion I don’t really see in MMO’s very much.

That’s what I liked about it. There are so many little things, it would be impossible to list them all. Like walking underneath a tree in Lornar’s Pass and having snow fall on your head (and I swear it makes your character slow down for like .2 seconds….or maybe it’s just me). The fact that you can see beneath the surface of the water while you’re swimming. Or the rain.

But, I think they didn’t take that aspect far enough – they tried way too hard to make the game into a theme park, which as we all know, sooner or later just withers away. Yes, you will draw a larger crowd at first to ooh and ahh at your theme park.

But people get bored fast.

I believe that if they had made the world bigger (or were in the process of making it bigger)…and I mean much bigger, like 2-3x it’s current size, and they continued to refine the immersion aspects of the game (there were supposed to be mini games everywhere you go), instead of trimming them back…heck, even the Living Story could be great if the put a little more effort into it.

They just don’t. All I see is minimal effort to string the thing along another day. Another week of lackluster QoL improvements, trickle of content through the Living Story, poor balance changes, little diversity in builds. Abandoning entire aspects of the game, like Dungeons or SAB.

Yeah, Anet just isn’t an awesome game developer.

Or maybe it’s NCSoft that’s forcing them.

At the end of the day, it won’t matter to me, and thousands of others like me, who just want an awesome game to sit down to for a few hours.

Because we’ll be in Archeage. Or Black Desert, or Star Citizen, or EQNext.

Anything with some new content.

I’m giving Anet until X-mas – if there’s no expansion by then, I will be gone forever.

If you mean by “expansion” what most of the whiners mean, then you might as well leave now. There won’t be a boxed expansion for GW2 in the foreseeable future.

szshou.2193:

gryph.8734:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

Asacledhae.2650:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

To all those leaving: Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Good attitude. Empty mega server eventually must be your cup of tea.

It won’t.

Megamauler will continuously harass him to change instance due to the lack of players. Eventually, if everyone leaves, then he’ll end up getting a: “Sorry, there aren’t enough players to open an instance. Instead, you’ve been taken in a queue. Your instance opens in 109:45:29 hours, please be patient.” message instead..

You people flatter yourselves. It’ll take many more than the number of whiners in these forums to have a meaningfully negative impact on the future of GW2.

Says the guy with a 6 hour forum presence. It’s ok if you are new here but calling people whiners who genuinely care(d) for the game is just [deleted due to content]. More people leave the game without saying a word compared to the forums. Have fun new guy.

Oh I know. Many more people are upset than are represented on this forum because…

…wait for it…

This forum isn’t representative of the entire population of GW2 players!

You think maybe that these whiners (Yeah. I went there…) are overestimating their ability to damage a game that doesn’t even have a monthly subscription fee by picking up their ball and going home? Good riddance!

And by the by, if I talk about whiners and you take it personally, perhaps you should ask yourself why. If you think I need convincing that the whiners feel like they cared for the game without regard for the fact that they bothered to play in the first place, aren’t you insulting my intelligence?

Shazam!

If you haven’t played GW1 or GW2 since the beginning you wouldnt understand how much ANet’s watering down of the game has affected everyone’s morale and desire to play. If you can’t even name your pet, or die in the tutorial instance, or make sense of what’s happening in the ending of the personal story, or access most game content until you hit a certain level it completely destroys immersion and makes you feel like the devs are laughing at you while rolling around in a bathtub full of your money.

With new MMO’s coming out or going into beta such as Archeage or Black Desert don’t be surprised if people leave GW2 by the truckload. NEVER underestimate the power of word-of-mouth; especially in a game that gains momentum through friends joining and playing together. If the devs continue on their path of self-destruction by: Not having Q&A testing, being extremely vague about upcoming releases, and devaluing the player experience to the point of loss of continuity and isolation of new players from genuine game mechanics, then this game will be dead before summer 2015. More and more people from my guild are disappearing even during times that are supposed to make the game thrive like patch days and WvW tournament season. It’s all due to how out of touch the developers are with the actual game, the sad thing is they probably don’t even know where they went wrong, hence the “adopt a dev” ploy so they can actually see what they’re doing wrong (I hope it works). If not then I’ll probably jump ship too when a game I prefer comes out. Which, by the looks of it, will be sooner rather than later.

That’s a pretty big “if” there. I played Guild Wars quite extensively beating all three chapters and Eye of the North with the same assassin and dervish toons. I played Guild Wars 2 since about one month after release, and I only waited that long because of the temporary suspension of digital sales. You can call me a lot of things, but “inexperienced” is a label that doesn’t fit too well where the Guild Wars/GW2 franchise is concerned.

That being said, why does a game like Archeage (with a subscription fee) or Destiny (FPS, with more in common with Borderlands than any MMO I’ve ever played) even have to cannibalize GW2? One of the points in GW2’s favor that I don’t expect to ever change is that you can quit playing for months and come back freely to pick up right where you left off. Some of us can walk and chew gum and even play more than one popular computer game at a time.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

Asacledhae.2650:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

To all those leaving: Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Good attitude. Empty mega server eventually must be your cup of tea.

It won’t.

Megamauler will continuously harass him to change instance due to the lack of players. Eventually, if everyone leaves, then he’ll end up getting a: “Sorry, there aren’t enough players to open an instance. Instead, you’ve been taken in a queue. Your instance opens in 109:45:29 hours, please be patient.” message instead..

You people flatter yourselves. It’ll take many more than the number of whiners in these forums to have a meaningfully negative impact on the future of GW2.

Says the guy with a 6 hour forum presence. It’s ok if you are new here but calling people whiners who genuinely care(d) for the game is just [deleted due to content]. More people leave the game without saying a word compared to the forums. Have fun new guy.

Oh I know. Many more people are upset than are represented on this forum because…

…wait for it…

This forum isn’t representative of the entire population of GW2 players!

You think maybe that these whiners (Yeah. I went there…) are overestimating their ability to damage a game that doesn’t even have a monthly subscription fee by picking up their ball and going home? Good riddance!

And by the by, if I talk about whiners and you take it personally, perhaps you should ask yourself why. If you think I need convincing that the whiners feel like they cared for the game without regard for the fact that they bothered to play in the first place, aren’t you insulting my intelligence?

Shazam!

Funny thing (haha) I spend more than a subscription on this game atm. The fact that I am rethinking this decision along with many others will effect you in the long run. I’m not leaving just yet if you bothered to read my original post. Why would I insult your intelligence? I neither know nor care who you are. I already know I’m not a whiner, you are just lumping people together under a close minded label.

My point still stands that if the developers of this game continue to ignore what the player base actually want then the game will die. People aren’t going to spend cash on gems or suggest the game to other people if the development continues to go in a direction that people don’t like.

Kapow?

You spend more than a subscription on this game because you choose to. If you decided to leave tomorrow, you would not be individually or personally missed — by myself or any Anet staffers. But again, you’d be making a choice. So it’s time to take a dump or get off the pot. Anet has made it abundantly clear that whining on the forums here won’t get the results you’re looking for.

Vix.6730:

Sarabande.8260:

very expansion in the original Guild Wars required new professions, with a corresponding new glut of skills and new tutorial content.

You must have meant, “every Guild Wars expansion included new professions with a corresponding new glut of skills and new tutorial content.” Expansions aren’t required to have new professions, its makes sense to release them there. And a glut of new skills would be welcomed right about now.

Back to the OP – Guild Wars remained relevant through expansions. Could there have been a different way to release content? Sure! Would it have fared any better than the standard expansion model? Who knows? I left my crystal ball in my other pants.

Bottom line is, the current model is obviously not working. You’ll be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t want the chance to explore a new continent or try their hands at a new class. What you will find is a plethora of veterans asking when they can enjoy some new content that doesn’t come in a forgettable, 2-hour dietary pill. The Living Story can never replace the meat you find in an expansion. Not in its current form.

I’m just the messenger. Anet would have continued with a fourth expansion and beyond if there was a way for them to do it without bogging the game down in ways that made skill balancing and tutorial design more and more cumbersome for them. If you have a problem with the fact that they decided not to go that route in GW2, Guild Wars is still running.

And to say that Guild Wars had “expansions” is technically untrue. Guild Wars had one expansion. The first three parts of the games were independent chapters that could be played in any order. Not really “expansions” in the sense that you could play them in any order or even independently of each other.

Vix.6730:

Sarabande.8260:

This community seems to be very, VERY angry. Almost every post I see is bursting at the seams with negativity, so as the title asks, is there anything good about this game? I am just getting back from a break where I was overseas, just built a computer, and am packing up to move to a new state so unfortunately I have not been able to play for more than 2 hours or so over the past few days.

Honestly, and please try and be as mature and rational as possible here, but is this game dying? Are people about to start leaving in high numbers? What is your real assessment of this game? I am thinking about getting my bf into this game, but after reading through these forums a bit I just don’t know.

Try your best to be objective. I would really like to read some mature responses. I see what’s bad, I see it in almost every thread, so what’s this game got going for it?

The game has been hemorrhaging players for some time. Everyone has a different opinion on why: the most used reason has been content in relation to PvE. The original Guild Wars retained and attracted new players through expansions. Guild Wars 2 was given a different approach that hasn’t panned out.

Instead of development time used to create a new continent, new classes, races, and quests we were given the Living Story. The first iteration was a flaming wreck. The 2nd iteration was very short before Anet took a break to “work” on the September feature release.

The feature pack is akin to a home owner redecorating the front of his abode during a house party in an effort to attract more guests, while keeping his back turned to his current ones. Veterans were slapped in the face. Many have voiced their frustration, others have probably just signed off.

My honest recommendation: stay away from GW2 until they release an expansion. The Living Story will not fix their tarnished image, nor will any Quality of Life improvement. ArenaNet has given the middle finger to every paying customer for too long. It’s expansion or bust.

If that’s your recommendation, I can accept it as valid. But you’ll be disappointed. Every expansion in the original Guild Wars required new professions, with a corresponding new glut of skills and new tutorial content. To continue with that business model would have been simply untenable. Anet publicly said as much. GW2 was their effort to correct the problems they had with the development of Guild Wars. My recommendation is, if you liked Guild Wars better than GW2, Guild Wars is still a perfectly functional game. But good luck finding other players to hang with. It’s been a little barren for the last 2 years.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

Asacledhae.2650:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

To all those leaving: Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Good attitude. Empty mega server eventually must be your cup of tea.

It won’t.

Megamauler will continuously harass him to change instance due to the lack of players. Eventually, if everyone leaves, then he’ll end up getting a: “Sorry, there aren’t enough players to open an instance. Instead, you’ve been taken in a queue. Your instance opens in 109:45:29 hours, please be patient.” message instead..

You people flatter yourselves. It’ll take many more than the number of whiners in these forums to have a meaningfully negative impact on the future of GW2.

Says the guy with a 6 hour forum presence. It’s ok if you are new here but calling people whiners who genuinely care(d) for the game is just [deleted due to content]. More people leave the game without saying a word compared to the forums. Have fun new guy.

Oh I know. Many more people are upset than are represented on this forum because…

…wait for it…

This forum isn’t representative of the entire population of GW2 players!

You think maybe that these whiners (Yeah. I went there…) are overestimating their ability to damage a game that doesn’t even have a monthly subscription fee by picking up their ball and going home? Good riddance!

And by the by, if I talk about whiners and you take it personally, perhaps you should ask yourself why. If you think I need convincing that the whiners feel like they cared for the game without regard for the fact that they bothered to play in the first place, aren’t you insulting my intelligence?

Shazam!

Asacledhae.2650:

gryph.8734:

Asacledhae.2650:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

To all those leaving: Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Good attitude. Empty mega server eventually must be your cup of tea.

It won’t.

Megamauler will continuously harass him to change instance due to the lack of players. Eventually, if everyone leaves, then he’ll end up getting a: “Sorry, there aren’t enough players to open an instance. Instead, you’ve been taken in a queue. Your instance opens in 109:45:29 hours, please be patient.” message instead..

You people flatter yourselves. It’ll take many more than the number of whiners in these forums to have a meaningfully negative impact on the future of GW2.

Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong. Only time will tell, my friend.

Calling someone a whiner for having an opinion different than yours however, is a whole different ball game. So please be polite to your fellow players and community, such attitude does you no credit.

Oh and, in case you (obviously) failed to notice, I was making a joke. Don’t you think that such a thing would’ve been absurd?

I’m sorry if my bile was misdirected. I just get tired of the same old crud every time a change is made to one of my favorite games. The same old arguments seem to come back time-and-again. It wears on me.

Miss Pink Floyd.9730:

“Is there anything good about GW2?”

Not any more.

Then ciao. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

tigirius.9014:

Oh lord another one of these posts again. If you actually read all of the comments even in the most passionate of threads there are always people who are in between. Who won’t hesitate to tell them when they are doing something wrong but will give you several reasons why they like other things, it’s not all vitriol.

I’d say in the forums, it seems like quite a bit more vitriol to me. In the game itself on the other hand, there seems to be a more even spread of opinions. At least within my guild, anyhow.

Asacledhae.2650:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

To all those leaving: Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Good attitude. Empty mega server eventually must be your cup of tea.

It won’t.

Megamauler will continuously harass him to change instance due to the lack of players. Eventually, if everyone leaves, then he’ll end up getting a: “Sorry, there aren’t enough players to open an instance. Instead, you’ve been taken in a queue. Your instance opens in 109:45:29 hours, please be patient.” message instead..

You people flatter yourselves. It’ll take many more than the number of whiners in these forums to have a meaningfully negative impact on the future of GW2.

vermazing.4602:

The game is still good, the problem is the community feels it could be significantly better if than it is right now if it were taken in another direction. in its preasent state there are still many portions of the game that many still find to be worth doing however much of the criticism is that most of the content in the game has been around since launch and much of this content is found to be lacking in true depth. additionally arena net seems to believe that living world will be enough to satisfy their playerbase and has not added significant enough permanent content to add to the games variety. Despite these flaws there are still many fun aspects to the game that are worth playing it just that there seem to be too few of them added for community’s tastes.

Pardon my saying, but I don’t think you really answered OPs question.

GW2 is different. You can play for months on end without ever spending a dime of real money if you don’t want to. I’m fully aware it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you need a break from old-school MMOs like World of Warcraft, GW2 is worth a look in my opinion.

Kamui.4038:

gryph.8734:

CalamityO.2890:

Rogue.7856:

LOL they are scaring off the very people they ‘claim’ to be catering towards. What a joke Anet… great job with that update to ‘enhancing’ the new player experience. Your ruining your game for EVERYONE!

Not ‘everyone’ – just the vocal majority on the forums. Heck even ipan (one of the biggest critics of the game on this forum) even said s/he’ll uninstall – but ended up re-installing and saying the new leveling system (1-15) isn’t that bad.

Today (9-10-2014) is my first day posting on the forum at all. I’d be interested to know what percentage of GW2 players have ever posted on the forums here at all.

Why are you looking at posts and not views? There are thousands of people browsing at any given time so the forums do get a lot of attention. Not everyone cares to login and post though especially when several others have already voiced their opinions that one more post isn’t going to make a difference.

I’m not a regular poster either until this update dropped and brought me out of the woodwork. I haven’t done this for any previous update to the game, even the trait changes. Previously I just lurked and would on rare occasions make a post. I imagine this is the same for most people judging from the views threads are getting. I felt obligated to voice concerns though because I want this game to succeed so much. I don’t want to quit or start another game and I would really love it if ANet would stick to their guns and not betray their vision from release.

I’m kind of in the same boat viz-a-vis not having posted here before until the update dropped. Still, I don’t think you can have your finger on the pulse of the GW2 player base just by lurking in here. It’s not what one would call a “scientifically controlled environmnt.”

CalamityO.2890:

Rogue.7856:

LOL they are scaring off the very people they ‘claim’ to be catering towards. What a joke Anet… great job with that update to ‘enhancing’ the new player experience. Your ruining your game for EVERYONE!

Not ‘everyone’ – just the vocal majority on the forums. Heck even ipan (one of the biggest critics of the game on this forum) even said s/he’ll uninstall – but ended up re-installing and saying the new leveling system (1-15) isn’t that bad.

Today (9-10-2014) is my first day posting on the forum at all. I’d be interested to know what percentage of GW2 players have ever posted on the forums here at all.

Kamui.4038:

gryph.8734:

Rogue.7856:

LOL they are scaring off the very people they ‘claim’ to be catering towards. What a joke Anet… great job with that update to ‘enhancing’ the new player experience. Your ruining your game for EVERYONE!

Yeah. Because one piece of anecdotal evidence proves you absolutely right in every regard on this subject. /s

And eventually new players will not even have the CHANCE to experience how things were before. Thus, they will not even have a frame of reference in which to compare experiences. They will just witness any remaining older players lament over how GW2 “used to be” and end up feeling they missed out on a Golden Age of sorts, and they would be right to do so.

In this respect, GW2 will end up being just like World of Warcraft.
Bravo, Anet. Bravo

Rogue.7856:

LOL they are scaring off the very people they ‘claim’ to be catering towards. What a joke Anet… great job with that update to ‘enhancing’ the new player experience. Your ruining your game for EVERYONE!

Yeah. Because one piece of anecdotal evidence proves you absolutely right in every regard on this subject. /s

Bri.8354:

gryph.8734:

Bri.8354:

I really hope they have been working on an expansion, or at least will start working on one.

The living story isn’t even close to being a substitute for an expansion. How can anyone even argue that? Heck, it doesn’t even begin to compete with what other games that follow a similar update schedule put out.

The update model can work, it has for many other games, but for whatever reason ANet does it poorly and I’d rather have a “boxed” expansion over this.

What about those of us that are perfectly happy without boxed expansions? Doesn’t our opinion count for jack?

Are you really happy with the pace, quality, and direction of the living story? Have you ever played another game that follows a similar model and seen what they can put out in comparison to GW2? I’m not saying we need a boxed expansion, but I doubt they will ever bring the current model up to a level that can match what one can put out there.

I was happier with the game pre-September Features Pack than I have been since. But that’s mostly because I hate to hear all the carping and moaning going on. As a certifiable lore junkie, I’m happy with the living story. I’m happy to get a few bites here and there, every couple of weeks, rather than a huge boxed expansion pack to fork out another $50 every two-to-three years. I’ve never felt obligated to spend a single dime on GW2 for any reason, and that’s one reason I’ve stuck with the game as long as I have even though I have spent quite a bit of money on it of my own volition.

fourhim.3584:

gryph.8734:

Let me put this into perspective for you, then:

World of Warcraft (vanilla) was released in November 2004. The first expansion came out in January 2007, over two years hence. Guild Wars 2 has only been out for a little over two years, and in that time they have had a relatively large amount of additional content that we paid NOTHING for. Just because you’d rather pay for a disc in the box doesn’t mean I, or even a majority, of GW2 players feel the same way.

And players like you keep the base game and don’t buy the expansions, then. I don’t understand why we can’t have BOTH “living world” and occasional expansions at the same time.

As I said, the living world IS the expansion. It’s the same reason there’s nothing akin to the living world in World of Warcraft. They do expansions instead.

You may not understand why Anet doesn’t do boxed expansions, and I’m pretty sure I’m not in a position to try to explain particulars to you as I’m not an Anet employee, but I assure you there is most definitely a reason for it. And I’m sure that reason has something to do with the fact that Anet’s goal all along has been to distance itself from other MMO’s and their respective business models.

Yes, I do feel as though Anet has failed somewhat in that effort to distance themselves with the release of this latest content patch. Various players have had various levels of success in articulating that, but I really do believe that’s what it boils down to. And it’s just not enough to really tick me off — yet.

In closing, if you want a game with expansions, go play a game with expansions. I think it’s all the carping and moaning about the game that occurred pre-September Features Pack that has gotten us to this sorry state. And quite frankly, I don’t want a bunch of naysayers damaging this game more than they already have.

Bri.8354:

I really hope they have been working on an expansion, or at least will start working on one.

The living story isn’t even close to being a substitute for an expansion. How can anyone even argue that? Heck, it doesn’t even begin to compete with what other games that follow a similar update schedule put out.

The update model can work, it has for many other games, but for whatever reason ANet does it poorly and I’d rather have a “boxed” expansion over this.

What about those of us that are perfectly happy without boxed expansions? Doesn’t our opinion count for jack?

DonQuack.9025:

fourhim.3584:

DonQuack.9025:

IIRC the game sorta flopped in China?

This is the link that I just read. Roughly 3.5 million more players, doubling the worldwide number of sales. This was as of July.

And Yes, I mean a box for sale at the store that will add a LOT of new content all at one time.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-07-10-guild-wars-2-is-a-big-hit-in-china

Go search up the reddits on the actual Chinese reaction the clamp down on negativity on their forums. and when I say clamp down I mean. CLAMP DOWN.

It’s true that the player base nearly doubled with the Chinese release, but there are two things to consider with that fact:

1. China contains almost 1/6 of the total world’s population, at just over one billion people. Difficulties notwithstanding, it would have been foolish for Anet not to make some kind of attempt to get a market in a place where WoW and other popular MMOs already have a presence.

2. The box sales can be kind of deceptive with this business model, as it says nothing about how long those players remain and how much money they spend on an ongoing basis if they do. Anet or Kongzhong must have access to these figures, but I would think their reasons for keeping the information from the public would be self-evident.

Kamui.4038:

gryph.8734:

fourhim.3584:

I may not understand economics very well, but it seems to me that if GW2 has just succeeded in getting hundreds of thousands of Chinese players, then their coffers are filling up now with new revenue. Congrats Anet.

Does this mean that we can expect a large, serious expansion in the next few months?

(As a former GW1 player, I’m not understanding the lack of expansions for this game, compared to others out there.)

Here’s hoping!

The living story is your expansion.

When you say you want an expansion, do you mean like another box to buy off the shelf at Walmart or something? The lack of those kinds of expansions is something I personally find refreshing.

The living story is a carrot on a stick. Not to mention they desperately need to get better writers and design characters that don’t belong on someone’s Tumblr blog like the current cast of “heroes.” It is all so underwhelming that I just mute the game and skip everything as fast as possible to get it all over with. The recent dragon fight where your character gets to fight the dragon alone was the only good part in recent memory.

An expansion creates whole new areas (not just a zone here and there), increases level caps, would maybe add a new weapon skill, add a new row or column of traits, and new utilities, etc., perhaps even a new race and/or class, and so on and so forth. It’s not a new quest every month.

I appreciate them at least making an effort but you can’t compare the LS to an expansion. The LS only has a few days of content to it.

A few day’s content, huh? I stand by my assertion. There was NO content added to World of Warcraft for the first full two years of its existence. There was a non-zero amount of content added to GW2 within the first six months of its existence. Now we can debate the amount and/or quality of that content until we’re blue in the face; that’s not what I’m talking about here. If you want to go play an MMO that releases a box with a disc in it every couple of years, be my guest. I am just pointing out that business model does not equally appeal to everyone. For that matter, it doesn’t appeal to everyone. Like me.

Let me put this into perspective for you, then:

World of Warcraft (vanilla) was released in November 2004. The first expansion came out in January 2007, over two years hence. Guild Wars 2 has only been out for a little over two years, and in that time they have had a relatively large amount of additional content that we paid NOTHING for. Just because you’d rather pay for a disc in the box doesn’t mean I, or even a majority, of GW2 players feel the same way.

fourhim.3584:

I may not understand economics very well, but it seems to me that if GW2 has just succeeded in getting hundreds of thousands of Chinese players, then their coffers are filling up now with new revenue. Congrats Anet.

Does this mean that we can expect a large, serious expansion in the next few months?

(As a former GW1 player, I’m not understanding the lack of expansions for this game, compared to others out there.)

Here’s hoping!

The living story is your expansion.

When you say you want an expansion, do you mean like another box to buy off the shelf at Walmart or something? The lack of those kinds of expansions is something I personally find refreshing.

Broom.2561:

The SOE developers had done focus group testing for the CU/NGE in SWG too. And look how that ended up. Metrics do not tell the whole of the story, statistics can be used to explain EVERYTHING your way, and focus groups often only tell you what you want to hear.

I’m willing to concede that there is still room for GW2 to flame out spectacularly. I don’t think it’s happpened yet, and I don’t think it’s a fait accompli. Devs can never be 100% sure how changes will go live until they do go live. I am reserving judgement for the moment.

[/quote]
(snipped for brevity)
However, i will say if they can iterate on content to the tune of 1-2 weeks on the regular, then i could see the iterative process working pretty well to make the game better overall.[/quote]

You do raise some good points. However, many of them hinge on how you define “better” or “worse.” If Anet loses 1000 players (just as a for instance) but 1200 come on board, it’s not a net loss. I’m not saying I know that’ s necessarily going to happen. It would be the other way around. If Anet loses 1000 players, they may only gain back 500. My point is that Anet has the money you spent on the account to start. In the end, the only thing they give a bloody flip about is getting as many people as possible to play whether or not that number includes you personally.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

gryph.8734:

To all those leaving: Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

Good attitude. Empty mega server eventually must be your cup of tea.

I’d be concerned if I really thought that was going to happen. As I don’t think that’s the road GW2 is going on, anyone who wishes to leave is more than welcome to do so as far as I’m concerned. I will not be leaving for the foreseeable future and I will NEVER leave GW2 for a pay-to-win or monthly subscription game. As always, YMMV.

Pifil.5193:

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Hi there,

As a follow-up to Colin’s post, we want you to know that we’re working kitten fixing bugs in the New Player Experience system. We’re also using this opportunity to make a few changes to its design to take into account the feedback we’ve been reading. We’re aiming to deploy the fixes early next week.

As Colin explained (make sure to read this post and that one if you haven’t!), this is a complex, “big picture” system that has a lot of components. We want it to benefit all players and improve your game experience overall.

We understand that this is an important topic for the community and appreciate that players have been talking about it. We’ve been triaging bug reports, developing fixes for them and discussing what design changes we will bring to you next week. We’ll continue to both work on the next updates and read the feedback from the community on this topic!

Thank you

I’ll be very interested in seeing what you do with the redesign work, it’ll be a great metric of the kind of speed you can muster there. If you can deliver a solution to the bugs and some of the issues in that time then kudos to you all.

However, once again I feel I have to say that this would have gone better if you were a bit more open about what you were planning on changing in the game. Redesign and reworking a feature after feedback will always be more expensive than soliciting that feedback first and incorporating it (where appropriate) in the work the first time.

If your first thought is “our company policy forbids that” then, well, a company’s policies should be set up to help the company, not to hinder it. Maybe it’s time for a change of policy?

This is all assuming, of course, that the current policies really are harming the company. “I don’t like the way you are doing things” and “We don’t like the way you are doing things” aren’t objective measures of harm to Anet’s bottom line.

To all those leaving: Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

TooBz.3065:

Regardless of the quality of the patch, it’s not easy to come here and post with all the bile and meanness that is going on.

It’s this bile and meanness that will turn me off of GW2 faster than any features pack ever could.

The worst part of the new features pack for me has been the negativity on the part of veteran players. That the negativity stems largely (though not exclusively) from misinformation does not help at all.