Guild Wars 2

Nat.4029:

This is no excuse for a mediocre storyline. There have been many games with Teen Ratings that have had awesome stories. Knights of the Old Republic? Morrowind? Baldurs Gate 2? None of those are MMOs, but saying that a Teen rating is hindering a writing staff is a bit of a stretch.

I have never said it is. I was just responding to the people talking about target audience and such by pointing out that they CAN’T TARGET an older audience specifically because they are tied by the rating.

Phoenixlin.8624:

Games are different, but idea is same. Both games suffer because of an automated system which kills every sense of community. Also, there are no games out there with a successful megaoverflow idea (in MMO world).

I would say that DC Universe Online have a rather successful Megaserver.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

And you had nothing better to do than write yet another ad hominem “observation”?
I

To be fair I have never claimed that I have better things to do

Azala Yar.7693:

Was just looking at this game in the view of maybe coming back to it.

Then I noticed Megaservers.

Been playing ESO (which is on a megaserver), have to say it’s been a poor experience and that’s just looking at the megaserver aspect of it.

Megaservers do nothing for RP they do nothing for fostering an MMO community thanks to all the phasing.

I guess companies choose this option probably because it’s cheap and cheerful. Well not cheerful for the players.

Oh well looks like I’ll have to find something else to play, as I won’t play on any more megaservers.

It is rather silly to base it off a completely different game and company though.
Just because one company fails with something doesn’t mean every other company will (there are other companies that released rather successful MegaServers long before ESO was even announced for one).

To be fair with that wording it is just as likely that is effect the Endless ones as it is that it doesn’t effect them.

So until we have actual information about it I would suggest not stating one thing or another as facts.

It is an extension of Brisban, and currently only contains a hole basically.

It is unlikely that it will be fully accessible until Living Story S2 starts on July 1st.

Loosmaster.8263:

Has anyone ever heard of testing releases using the people that actually play the game? No, we do it in house and it works as intended. Welcome to Glitch Wars 2. Please buy more gems.

You are aware that they have (or at least had) alpha testers from the community right?
It is of course possible that they stopped with that after that kitten decided to post stuff from those forums though.

Who did tell you that?
As far as I know we didn’t even have any confirmations (or indications for that matter) that there would even be a patch today.

Five people can quite easily take a tower on their own, even without the NPC commander, so I don’t really see how this would change anything.
The siege is almost fully built when the NPC pops it up.

Well they seems to have added the finisher this patch, so it is rather likely that the mini will come soon.
Either as a stand-alone mini in the gemstore or as a meta-achievement for a potential Dragon Bash release.

They are also limited by the Teen rating the game have, which means that they can’t past certain lines even if they are fully capable of it.

DaveGan.8065:

If it’s okay to fanboi hype things to hell, it’s also okay to be skeptical.

There is however a rather massive difference between being skeptical and shouting about how much something will suck.

And to be honest I haven’t really seen anyone fanboying about how awesome the release is, seeing as no-one have actually seen it yet.

Elagos.6029:

Meh… too little too late for me. Drop me a mail when you actually release fixes for all the problems and I’ll read the patch notes. If they look promising, I may be back, until then its just empty promises and fluff. I have better things to do in other titles than stand around in here at wp’s waiting for spawns… spend 50 min or so per hour just idle, its turned into a waiting simulator

I’ll look out for a ‘hey we just fixed our megaserver bugger up please come back’ email, but won’t be holding my breath

Have fun

And yet you didn’t have better things to do than to post a silly forum-post?

Mad Pig.2890:

I’m not frustrated that there is going to be a fix. I’m frustrated that 9 weeks of ‘content’ falls flat onto nothing.

I still don’t get this part.
Where have they said that we won’t get our rewards? And if they haven’t what are you even talking about?
Just because you don’t have your rewards right now doesn’t mean you won’t get them.

Mad Pig.2890:

When they don’t give a date, expect the worse. This could be held off until July for all we know.

Giving a date is usually not a good idea in these cases. Just see how people are behaving here right now, just imagine what would happen if they gave a date and didn’t manage to solve the issue before that date.

Mad Pig.2890:

Essentially 8 weeks of content vanishing into nothing.

Oh, so they have confirmed that there will be no rewards for anyone then?

And what do you mean by vanish?
Have the fights you had in WvW suddenly been erased from history?

How am I missing the point? Instead of behaving like that why not explain the point you are trying to make? Because from my point of view your posts basically says that they should cater specifically to you.

I seem to recall they saying something about districts simply not being possible with the current server tech they use, which is why they don’t have districts.

And there we are at it again.
You somehow feel like the game should cater to people like you, that don’t actively play, rather than those of us that plays at least a couple of hours a week, which is most likely the vast majority of the playerbase.

I know that you will counter with the whole: “Ah but they can make it permanent!”, but that isn’t really a solution either. Making stuff like S1 living story fully permanent would take away a rather major part for at least me and a couple of other people I know. The part about the world actually moving rather than being static (which is the case if everything added just stays forever).

To be fair events that can be completed in a couple of hours but are available for AT LEAST two weeks isn’t really that much race against the clock.
If you feel the need to get every single achievement available in each release it will probably take a bit longer. But the event itself doesn’t usually take much time to experience and finish.

Oh, so those kinds of events are okay when the vast majority of the players won’t ever see them, but when the majority actually can see (and do) them it is bad?

Zylonite.5913:

How come a 2 weeks PvE living story reward chest is delivered instantly, but a 7-9 weeks WvW reward gets bugged and might never be delivered?

Because the WvW system is far more complex than PvE?
In PvE every single player that completes the meta gets the exact same reward.
In WvW the rewards is based on placements and so on.

Test.8734:

Tell that to the PLAYERS who still haven’t received their season ONE rewards.

There is only so LONG you can FOOL people before they stop believing in you.

And why do you think they push back the rewards for S2 now then instead of doing the same thing as they did in S1?

Test.8734:

Because, Vayne THE Second, it’s rather obvious that not giving rewards to ANYONE is WORSE than not giving rewards to SOME. It’s ArenaNet’s own fault that many players won’t get their rewards, but it’s simply POOR management to punish EVERYONE because of their mistake.

I DIDN’T get my chest. But it’s rather RIDICULOUS to not give rewards to ANYONE because SOME wouldn’t be able to get itin time.

But it is not like they are removing the rewards forever. Everyone will still get them. Why does it matter if I get them tomorrow or if I get them next week? I will get them sooner or later anyway.

Test.8734:

SOOOO…

MANY people didn’t receive their CHESTS, thus delaying WHEN they will get their rewards.

ArenaNet’s answer? To delay EVERYONE’s rewards, so even those that DID get their chests won’t be able to get their weapons.

WAY. TO. GO.

Any idea if we will be able to get our rewards BEFORE season 3? Considering how some people STILL haven’t received their season ONE rewards? Although I guess this will be decided by the LIVING Story team, since the WvW seasons are basically PLACEHOLDERS for the periods between Living Story content.

Did you even read the post you quoted?
He gave a good reason as to why they delay everything.
IN ORDER TO NOT MAKE THE ISSUE WORSE. How is that so hard to understand?

I would love to see a source for patch tomorrow.
And no, they shouldn’t need a patch to activate the reward NPC seeing as the informations is already in the dat-file and they just need to switch it on.

adubb.2453:

ETA on when this issue will be resolved? This seems like something that should be really easy to correct. Check to see if the WvW season 2 meta flag was flipped. If Yes, give reward.

While Dragonbrand didn’t do all that well, I still want my tokens!

To be fair that is most likely already the case, and yet it doesn’t work, so the issue is most likely deeper down.

If it was bought directly from ArenaNet you can get a refund up to 6 months after purchase.

But since I seem to recall you complaining on the forums for far longer than that, I doubt you will get a refund.

Devata.6589:

Lordkrall do me one favour. Don’t ask or say I refuse to explain something I already explained to you (multiple times) before. You can simply read it back.

I said the money comes from the sale of the game itself, that pays for the first expansion and then the money for the second expansion comes from the first expansion.

The LS story cost money as well you know.

“The fact remains that it is rather unlikely that the box-sales alone would be enough to give salaries to 300+ employees during the whole time it takes to create, market and sell an expansion. ”
Lol, Well have a look at the link I gave as answer to what I said you would be asking next.. as that’s where your answer is to this question.

Summarised what is being said there: When looking at the numbers an expansion-based model could generate more money then the cash-shop. It’s also how many games finance the sequels.

“You are removing a continuous source of income (gem-store) with a one-time source of income with rather long time in-between. ”
No I replace the gem-store income (what at this moment is about 21% every Q of what the game earned at release) with an expansions-based model that generates money once a year (when releasing every year). What, looking at the numbers, would generate about 100% of the original sales in a years time. (when released today it would likely not also generate the 100% as to many people have already been alienated from the game).

Anyway you asked what I predicted you would ask and gave the link to the answer. If you would have read it you would have gotten your answer (again). Yes the numbers suggest it’s enough, in fact they suggest it might be more. (when releasing an expansion every year)

Yes, you claim that the money games for the game-sales. But do you really think that they did get enough money on game-sales alone in order to pay salaries for 300+ employees + all other required fees, such as server-clusters, working-stations, consults and marketing among other things, for OVER A YEAR without any additional income?

On an average in the gaming industry a single employee (as of last year) $84,337 per year.
If we assume that everyone (which is not true, there are people earning more and people earning less) earns exactly that and assume that they currently have 350 employees that would mean about 29,5 MILLION dollars per year. For salaries alone.

Now lets say that an expansion takes 2 years to complete and release (because releasing yearly real expansions is rather unlikely, most MMOs doesn’t get their first expansions until several years in) that would mean about 60 million dollars spent on only salaries.
Do you really think they would be able to survive in the long-term with costs like that (and that is not including costs outside of salaries) based on only releasing an expansion now and then?

An expansion would most likely not cost the same as the original game, and people have (as you seem keep to point out quite often) left the game, and as such it is extremely unlikely that every expansion would generate 100% of the original income from the original game.

Devata.6589:

I refuse to suggest how they would get the money? Pretty sure you said that already multiple times to me and I answering it multiple times.

Like here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/KongZhong-Details-about-GW2-China/page/2#post4076878

However I will state it more easy here. (as you had to get the information form multiple places on that comment)

You earn money with the game and invest part of that into the expansion (like most companies invest part of there income) then that expansion earns money and you can invest part of that into the next expansion and so on and so on.

I don’t remove most of there income (what I have also said multiple times to you). I just replace it with another source of income. Expansions in stead of cash-shop.

Here is the answer to the question you might be asking next:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/KongZhong-Details-about-GW2-China/page/2#post4077017
If you keep following the same trend.

But you time and time again completely ignore the fact that making said expansions will COST MONEY, money that you claim will come WITH said expansion. So where would they get the money to make said expansion in the first place?

The fact remains that it is rather unlikely that the box-sales alone would be enough to give salaries to 300+ employees during the whole time it takes to create, market and sell an expansion.

You are removing a continuous source of income (gem-store) with a one-time source of income with rather long time in-between. Sure they would get a big boost of income with the release of expansions. But would that income be enough to keep the game and company going between those expansions?

Sirendor.1394:

What you all forgot is that Guild Wars 1 is BY FAR the better game, given the time frame it was released (early 2000s).

That is actually rather silly.
There were games released in the 80s that were “far better games” than games released today.

Release date for a game doesn’t really have that much to do with how good a game is.

Heroes of Might and Magic III for one is much better than IV, V and VI in my eyes for one.

Devata.6589:

I would want them to remove most of the cash-shop increasing the choice and experience for everybody in the game itself. It is however nice of you to agree that apparently the cash-shop does take part of that out of the game by stating you get can it by buying items from the cash-shop.

And how would you finance your beloved expansion if you remove most of their income?
You keep shouting about how much the gem-store sucks and how they should remove it and add expansions instead, but you refuse to actually suggest how they would get money to develop said expansion without the money gained from the gem-store.

It is quite possible that they will become available again when Dragon Bash comes back (seeing as it is suppose to be a recurring event), and as such they are not available from the barterer right now.

nexxe.7081:

You don’t need a survey. Merging populations with Megaservers is all you need to know that the population dropped off drastically. If it was stable, no mergers would be needed. If it was growing, they would add new servers.

The majority left, because they didn’t like GW2 and how it was being developed over the last year.

Oh, I suppose Elder Scrolls Online lost the majority of their population before the game was even released then? Because I seem to recall them having mega-servers from day one.

You have no proof whatsoever as to how many have left and for what reason they left.
People have been complaining about the lack of activity in zones for quite some time. ArenaNet tried to fix that issue by creating the MegaServers (which is basically a variant of what people have been suggestion for those empty zones (underflows)).

I still see loads of people everywhere. And the queues in WvW are still rather long at times. Which would suggest that there are still quite many people playing.

The forums are also very lively, which would suggest that there are quite many people still active (unless they are silly and cant let go and keep spamming the forums without actually playing).

nexxe.7081:

Not just me, but the majority of people too. We actually wanted to enjoy GW2, but the designers listened to the minority, and made the game less enjoyable for everyone else. The game went from overflows to merged servers, and your logic is to keep supporting bad decisions by giving them more money! Brilliant.

The majority based on what survey?
Not even the majority of the forums agree with you, and the forums is very far from even close to a majority of the actual player base.

Just because people disagree with you doesn’t make them a minority.

nexxe.7081:

Wrong! Throwing money at something that’s not enjoyable isn’t improving it. It just supports more bad decision making by Anet. Only a handful of people left will support them, while the rest leave the game. How is that helping GW2? It’s not.

Not enjoyable for you.
And I am rather sure that you don’t actually spend any money on it, so I don’t really see why you are so upset when people that actually DOES enjoy the game and the content spend money on it, in order to improve it.

Bob F It.5701:

Living Story could be designed with time-locked instances being accessible to characters that haven’t been through the content. This would allow new and returning players to catch up at a pace that suits them, and enjoy the content.
Instead, we have to keep assigning some character as Exposition Fairy (this is currently Tiami), and violate that silver rule of exposition “Show, don’t tell”. Or, as() so many keep pointing out, switch the game off and start researching the backstory on the wiki and whatnot.

The main issue with that however is the fact that the vast majority of it took place out in the open world, and much of it required rather large groups of people.

IF they were to add something like this, they would basically need to have multiple versions of every single map that had any part of Living Story in them (and quite a few of them would require 3 or more versions (the live one, living story #1, living story #2 for example)) and that would take quite a bit of resources for something that might very well be used by a very limited amount of people.

How would the warrant spending that time and money on something that might be used by lets say 10 people out of a couple of hundred thousands each week?

I think you remember Prophecies, Nightfall and Eye of the North quite a bit wrongly.

It took quite some time before we saw the Lich, Abaddon and the Great Destroyer respectively. In fact in Prophecies it took more or less until the very end before we knew who the big enemy was.

Same with Zhaitan in GW2.
More or less the first half of the personal story in GW2 have basically nothing to do directly with Zhaitan.
Its first direct attack takes place in Battle of Claw Island, which is rather far into the story.

I personally prefer a more “realistic” story, where the big enemy doesn’t simply do something massively evil for the whole world to see as soon as he/she/it turns up

Did it somehow state a price that was lower than what you actually paid when transfer?
Or did you just blindly transfer and assumed the price would be lower than the stated price? Because I really don’t think you have a basis for a refund unless the price stated was incorrect.

I never understood all this “too late” thing.
That would basically imply that they should basically not even bother doing anything about it, because it won’t matter anyway.

Yeah, for some reason rather many people seemed to read June rather than July.
Which is very weird seeing as they have NEVER released anything on a Saturday and they have never waited until less than a week before a release before announcing it (not counting April 1st.)

Kain Francois.4328:

My problem with the Canthan district is it doesn’t really look Canthan. Where’s the Kurzicks and Luxons?

Well to be fair Divinity’s Reach was built rather long after the Kurzick and Luxon were crushed by the emperor.

Bob F It.5701:

I’ve killed Zhaitan FOUR times.
After Dragon Bash.

That’s my answer.

The main difference there is that the whole personal story/dungeons are locked in time.
It actually takes place over a year before the current in-game time, and as such you are basically experiencing the past (and all of it is completely instanced no less.)

katniss.6735:

Hey grats bros on paying your way onto a full server to achieve said fun vs next to no players on the opposing team.

SICK

Maybe you should check my signature? I am not part of one of those full servers. In fact my server ended at position 5 in the silver league.
But nice try.

Yes how dare people actually enjoy playing a game!

Devata.6589:

Come on man, just react on what I say, don’t translate it to your own story and then attack your own story as if it was mine. If you have to do that it only proofs you are right.

First of all I never said all money.

They create content with the cash-shop in mind. So if they make new content there is always the question “how do we get people to buy gems”. Thats what I mean bad cash-shop behavior. As that is what I said, not that it went back into the cash-shop as you translated it.

“Because I find it very unlikely that box-sales alone have been able to manage salaries for 300+ people for almost two years.” You do understand that putting money into the game means paying those salaries right??

“It is better for my game-play since more money for ArenaNet means more money to spend on improving the gameplay. Just as I said in the earlier post.”
You only say that more money is better for your game-play (what btw would suggest pure expansions focus would have been better looking at the numbers but that to a side) not why mini’s in the cash-hop improve the quality of the game as that was the original questions. There are multiple ways to make money. They whole point here is to what is better, not the fact that more money is better.

“We all know that you detest everything that requires some sort of payment,” Yeah that is why I did buy the CE, that is why I dislike F2P games and that is why I am asking for expansion every year (to finance there product) meaning I would have paid more by now then with this cash-shop focus as I have never and will never buy any gems. So by asking for something that in fact would mean I had to pay more you (wait everybody) can conclude I detest everything that requires some sort of payment.

You know with that sort of conclusions I like it that we are disagreeing here, because it gives a lot more credibility to my side of the story.

I keep hearing all this about creating content with cash-shop in mind, but I have yet to actually see a concrete example of it. So please before you keep shouting about that can you at least give us an example?

And what is this bad gem-store behavior you are talking about?
The fact that they are adding completely unnecessary stuff that people can chose to buy if they want to?

Exactly, putting money into the game goes to salaries (and other expenses) but in order to put money into the game they need to actually get money. In order to get money they need to generate income.

The game-play is improved when more resources are spent on improving it. Those resources are dependent on money. Minis in the gem-store means money going into the game without too much money going out (seeing as most minis are basically just downscaled already existing models). They could of course create loads of completely new stuff for the gemstore as well, but then that would require a far higher cost than the minis, and as such they would get less money.

And how are those $150 that you spent about two years ago keeping the game alive now?
You also seems to be under the impression that adding an expansion per year is something easy and/or cheap. It costs a massive amount of money to create expansions, and if those expansions doesn’t sell well enough it might very well spell doom for the game and the company, if they have no alternative sources of income (such as subs and/or cash-shops).

Adding an expansion a year is more or less impossible if they want to keep a high quality of said expansions.

Devata.6589:

More money from mini’s means more mini’s in the cash-shop and other bad cash-shop behavior. They see the cash-shop making money so focus even more on the cash-shop. Overall it does not do much good for the game but worse. Meanwhile thinks like mini’s are out of the game what might not be a problem for your game-play but is for many other players. Of course you can replace mini’s with a lot of things..

Oow and that still does not show how mini’s in the cash-shop is better is good for your game-play vs them out of the cash-shop. You simply ignore the mini’s here as game-play and talk about if they have money (what they can earn in multiple ways) they can make new game-play elements so in a way you are only confirming that it’s a negative from the game-play perspective surrounding the mini.

So any money made from the gemstore (which seems to be the majority of the income for GW2) is simply put back into creating more stuff for the gemstore? Might I ask how they have financed all development since released in that case? Because I find it very unlikely that box-sales alone have been able to manage salaries for 300+ people for almost two years.

It is better for my game-play since more money for ArenaNet means more money to spend on improving the gameplay. Just as I said in the earlier post.

We all know that you detest everything that requires some sort of payment, and will do anything to invalidate it as a source of income, but the fact remains, it DOES help pay for you as well. Or do you suggest that they can improve everything without getting money?

Devildoc.6721:

So I’m completely and utterly confused then.

Why would you buy a Gift of Heroes. Ever. Why not just save the tickets and buy a mistforged weapon next tournament?

The Gift of Heroes method of upgrading is a complete ripoff.

Maybe if you made the Gift of Heroes 100 tickets, 1000 badges, and then had to combine with the wine and dust, people might go for it. People could spend some badges and gold to get 2 weapons that way.

But as it is.. you don’t save any tickets, you spend extra money… and get the same result as just holding onto the tickets for the next tourny. It makes 0 sense.

Because someone that didn’t get enough tickets for the complete weapon might want to get the lower-end weapon this tournament to at least get something, instead of having to wait for six months (or whenever the next tournament ends) in order to get something?

The system was not added to save tickets, the system was added to allow people to get rewards and later on upgrade them, rather than not getting any rewards at all.

It is interesting how many people here seems to be fully aware about how ArenaNets development works.

Another thing that is funny is that when they don’t change things based on feedback (as in not follow their plan and do “on the whim ideas”) people whine about them ignoring feedback.
But now apparently they shouldn’t listen to feedback and just do their thing.

Make up your kitten minds.

minbariguy.7504:

Then why isn’t there real permanent death? How far do you want to take this “real life” thing?

Well to be fair technically you never die.
You get defeated, which could be read as too weak to keep fighting, but not dead