Guild Wars 2

Vol.7601:

I feel the same way about you, but for different reasons.

Whenever I see a nice skin that they have released, especially when it’s something like a weapon or a backpiece, I feel like I will never wear it. Because there is no way that I’m going to replace my Eternity with a Ley Line greatsword or my fractal capacitor with a crafting backpiece. I can’t ‘downgrade’ because I feel like I’m wasting money.

I think these new skins are more for the general playerbase or up and coming players (that is the theme of today’s reveal). Having more options doesn’t hurt I suppose

this is a flaw with transmutation per charge versus unlocks. IMO unlocks was the best bet, even if it costs transmutation charges the first time. As you say, people arent going to delve deeply into alternate cosmetics as long as they must consider going back to their old looks.

This crafters backpack especially, is the type of thing you might want to wear sometimes, not all the time.

mtpelion.4562:

Morsus.5106:

Crise.9401:

If you are so worried about cloth scraps go make an alt that uses light armor.

I’m not sure if you see the problem here. I shouldn’t have to make an alt to gear my main.

You won’t. Cloth prices are going to tumble hard as farmers focus on using light armor classes to boost their silk gains.

If you don’t want to make an alt, you will still have the option to get cloth for a LOT less money soon.

this could work out, because it could theoretically balance the supply based on the needs of the market, however, i think some sort of setting that isnt completely hardwired to what charachter you are playing could better do this.

I guess as others have said, there may be more of a reason to play certain classes if you have multiple

toggles, or specific settings for what type of things you want to hunt would be good imo

ShadowPuppet.3746:

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Problem is, the most content that they’ve released fills no purpose. EotM is 24/7 karmatrain at best and Southsun Cove is as redundant as any other PvE map.

And thats the reason why an expansion with 20 maps will also change nothing.
People consume them in 20 hours .. and then say : Give us something new ..

The problem is that many players including me don’t want a level cap with a
new gear grind .. however exactly that is what makes people play all the new maps
in other MMOs with every single character .. because the NEED to do all the quests
there to get to the next level cap .. and then to gear up again.

Here we can say : oh .. those maps are boring and redundant .. because there is no
need to play them .. and even with a new level cap we can still level to 90 or whatever
in Queensdale thanks to the mentoring system.

you ever play guild wars 1? ffxi? both maintained one level cap throughout at least 3 expansions/campaigns.

What makes people do the content? interesting new things to do in interetsing areas, with interesting rewards.

It has been done, it can be done again. If anet is wondering how, they can PM me, i will give them free ideas.

GW1 was NO MMO. FFXwhatever .. asian grinder ?

Played Lineage 2, EQ2, AoC, RoM, Aion, LotRO, RIFT, Champions Online.
EQ2 the longest for over 4,5 years and through 4 expansions.

For the “interesting” things .. yeah didn’t they tried that in Dry Top with the insects ?
I’m still unsure if it makes more people happy or unhappy to implement more of these
RNG type things to force people to play specific content (aka making it “interesting”)

Mostly in the end you look if there is a better farming area in the new zones of the
expansion, and if there is one people change their prefered location to that map.

Oh .. or what also has been done a lot is implement faction grind in every new zone
so you can grind 20 dailies for different factions each day.

ffxwhatever as you call it, would probably not fall into the asian grinder category. it had one level cap, and most gear was obtained with less repetion than gw2 currently has, more focused on actually doing specific events/content.

regardless, point is, its not really leveling or statistically more powerful gear that has to drive people to go into new areas.

you dont have to use intense rng to make people play an area.

lets say you made a canthan expansion, with new canthan weapons, new canthan armors, and expanded home instance/guildhall system, new skills/new traits, new weapon skill animations, dungeons, special events. All of these things being in that area is what would drive people to go there. you dont need low drop rate items, or higher level stuff, you just need new interesting things. People who like a game are looking for new reasons to keep playing it, and experience a different flavor.

and, did you play gw1? the only thing not mmo like about it, was that you didnt have a persistent world. The quest systems, item distribution/skills aquisistion/progression would have fit perfectly into a persistent world had they chosen that path.

Oh how I do miss the rare monster camping from ffxi… I absolutely hated it at the time , but now find myself wishing for it in other games I played. For all it’s faults, ffxi was actually a pretty fantastic game in terms of complexity and how you went about actually getting certain items of prestige through the use of long epic quest chains that often could not be completed solo. A bit on the fence about the xp grinding parties though since I don’t have nearly the time to devote to games that I used to and the idea of having to wait for a party to level up makes me cringe now, though I will say it truly felt like a mmorpg since kitten near everything you could do in that game required having a party to do it.

rare monster camping was pretty annoying, but they often had other means of filling any slot, with a comparable, and sometimes better (for some circumstances) item. Even though they had a low drop rate high level boot, you could also use any of say 3 other that you got via doing hard content, or the +1 that required massive money, etc. The main problem was joining large organziations, and the drama that comes with that.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Clerigo.9475:

I stopped playing GW2 last week, and i wont return until you guys deliver what was promised.

Normally I stop reading here, having us users stating that “things were promised” is the first step of devs ignoring us. For the record: nothing was promised as everything is subject to change.

Even if you seem to acknowledge the difficulty of finding something useful in these forums, you should consider: thousands of player replies with tens of thousands of different opinions.

doesnt really matter if he was technically promised or not, what matters is he isnt satisfied, and thus does not want to play anymore. Many people who have left didnt think they were promised something, they just left because the game didnt have enough new or interesting things to do.

Debating a promise or not is irrelevant, the lack of content they expected/wanted is why they left, promised or not.

keep telling people as they walk out of your business you promised them nothing, it will be similarly pointless.

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

ffxwhatever as you call it, would probably not fall into the asian grinder category.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Final%20Fantasy%20XI&defid=3330099

This game is the ultimate example of the Asian “roleplaying” mentality. That change is scary and actually presenting a game that simulates roleplaying, is far less impressive, than watching the same asymmetrical outfit wearing clown in an anime movie jump around, pockmarked with menu selections.
Beat the same stupid setup until time ends. Grind, grind and grind to fight a big monster every other month, so you can get gear to grind again for better gear, to grind for better gear, so you can grind for better gear to fight a big monster that takes 18+ hours to kill. Where’d the kittening “role playing” go?

Ok …

sooo you believe in what urban dictionary says?

No .. that was just the first thing i found when googling for FFXY and “grind”.

However i remember i heared about mobs that needed 30 hours to kill and that
even people in Lineage 2 called that one very grindy. And nobody can tell me
that Lineage 2 was NOT pure grind.

i dont know if anyone beat absolute virtue legitamately(before they raised the cap), but theory at the time was that there was some mechanic that people didnt understand, not that he required 18 hours.
Its possible that some group tried to beat him for 18 hours straight and failed, but that would be because they didnt figure out his mechanic, and he re healed to full often.

people i know who played lineage and ffxi, said lineage was way more grindy.
you could get from 1 to max level in a couple of weeks a few hours a day in FFXI, and you could do endgame content in standard level 75 gear which was not hard to obtain.
the game was not casual though, how long you took to level, and how hard it was to get good gear was based on learning the game well and having people to play with. You could actually end up losing exp in the game.

Stiofan.6720:

Phys why are you so against us having control over our own destiny.

its not really your destiny you want to control, you just hate knowing people can see you exist.

part of living in the world is accepting even people you dont care about, can see you exist.

i mean sure if they give you what you want, i wouldnt mind, but it really serves virtually no purpose,

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

ffxwhatever as you call it, would probably not fall into the asian grinder category.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Final%20Fantasy%20XI&defid=3330099

This game is the ultimate example of the Asian “roleplaying” mentality. That change is scary and actually presenting a game that simulates roleplaying, is far less impressive, than watching the same asymmetrical outfit wearing clown in an anime movie jump around, pockmarked with menu selections.
Beat the same stupid setup until time ends. Grind, grind and grind to fight a big monster every other month, so you can get gear to grind again for better gear, to grind for better gear, so you can grind for better gear to fight a big monster that takes 18+ hours to kill. Where’d the kittening “role playing” go?

Ok …

sooo you believe in what urban dictionary says?
If you seriously want to know what the game was actually like i can tell you. It had its flaws, but most of the grind was because people like grinding (they had like 24 jobs, and some people wanted to level them all)

biggest flaws, imo were stale combat (pretty common for mmos of that era) requirement of guilds or large groups for much content ( you couldnt kill almost anything alone for most classes) And a fairly high level competitive pve in the open world(fighting to claim monsters)

some of those improved near the end, but it was largely the same.

stale.9785:

Vayne, my man, you’re trying too hard to convince those who disagree.

The feature patch is bringing us stuff the game needs – yep, no disagreement there. I think the bigger problem is all the hype coming for what is, when all is said and done, quality of life fixes.

I’ll grant, this is simply my opinion, but the QoL stuff shouldn’t get that much fanfare. Really, the amount of hyping going into it is annoying. The whole teasing out bits and pieces over weeks, and being jubilant over each bit… that’s the kind of treatment I’d expect for full on content – content for me being new maps, new skills, new weapons, new dungeons. That type of release deserves massive hype and a bunch of teasing.

A far more appropriate way to treat what’s in the feature patch would be, to me:

“Folks, we’ve been listening, and a number of people have had concerns over how the Megaserver™ treats guilds, so we’re making guilds work across worlds.

In addition, we’re aware of some problems from how the dungeon party system works, and we’ve found a solution that removes the party owners.

As always, we’re working to improve performance, and have made some large strides towards that goal that will be visible come patch day."

And so on. Have each major point of the feature patch addressed, all at once, without all the hype.

It’s hard for most people to get terribly excited about bugfixing and system changes. They may notice, but it likely won’t make a huge change in how they play, and it certainly isn’t giving people more options in what they’ll do while in game. Honestly, for what’s coming, they could have just done a normal patch, with regular release notes and I feel it would have gone over smoother.

Just my $0.02

Stale

(Addressed this to Vayne because, while I mostly agree with where you’re coming from, I certainly understand the disappointment evident from others in what we’re getting. Every time you go to bat arguing with people over stuff like this, it makes you seem that much more a hardcore Anet “white knight/apologist”, when mostly, they don’t need it.)

Edited because the forum censor is just plain out strange sometimes.

yes you are right, this stuff usually goes at the bottom of patch notes, because while it is welcomed, it doesnt really deserve a blog post, or even top billing.

Beldin.5498:

phys.7689:

Beldin.5498:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Problem is, the most content that they’ve released fills no purpose. EotM is 24/7 karmatrain at best and Southsun Cove is as redundant as any other PvE map.

And thats the reason why an expansion with 20 maps will also change nothing.
People consume them in 20 hours .. and then say : Give us something new ..

The problem is that many players including me don’t want a level cap with a
new gear grind .. however exactly that is what makes people play all the new maps
in other MMOs with every single character .. because the NEED to do all the quests
there to get to the next level cap .. and then to gear up again.

Here we can say : oh .. those maps are boring and redundant .. because there is no
need to play them .. and even with a new level cap we can still level to 90 or whatever
in Queensdale thanks to the mentoring system.

you ever play guild wars 1? ffxi? both maintained one level cap throughout at least 3 expansions/campaigns.

What makes people do the content? interesting new things to do in interetsing areas, with interesting rewards.

It has been done, it can be done again. If anet is wondering how, they can PM me, i will give them free ideas.

GW1 was NO MMO. FFXwhatever .. asian grinder ?

Played Lineage 2, EQ2, AoC, RoM, Aion, LotRO, RIFT, Champions Online.
EQ2 the longest for over 4,5 years and through 4 expansions.

For the “interesting” things .. yeah didn’t they tried that in Dry Top with the insects ?
I’m still unsure if it makes more people happy or unhappy to implement more of these
RNG type things to force people to play specific content (aka making it “interesting”)

Mostly in the end you look if there is a better farming area in the new zones of the
expansion, and if there is one people change their prefered location to that map.

Oh .. or what also has been done a lot is implement faction grind in every new zone
so you can grind 20 dailies for different factions each day.

ffxwhatever as you call it, would probably not fall into the asian grinder category. it had one level cap, and most gear was obtained with less repetion than gw2 currently has, more focused on actually doing specific events/content.

regardless, point is, its not really leveling or statistically more powerful gear that has to drive people to go into new areas.

you dont have to use intense rng to make people play an area.

lets say you made a canthan expansion, with new canthan weapons, new canthan armors, and expanded home instance/guildhall system, new skills/new traits, new weapon skill animations, dungeons, special events. All of these things being in that area is what would drive people to go there. you dont need low drop rate items, or higher level stuff, you just need new interesting things. People who like a game are looking for new reasons to keep playing it, and experience a different flavor.

and, did you play gw1? the only thing not mmo like about it, was that you didnt have a persistent world. The quest systems, item distribution/skills aquisistion/progression would have fit perfectly into a persistent world had they chosen that path.

Dondarrion.2748:

ColinJohanson.2394:

ipan.4356:

We don’t want you to “stay within company policies” – we want you to change the policy and communicate the direction you’re going in more.

Yup as I said, I’ll pass that feedback up the chain!

As for your company policy saying such, how about then with NCSoft, your own holding company, and investors issuing investment briefs that tend to bring up alleged expansions and create wild player expectations, this last time an investor just putting out there that NCSoft is indeed preparing an xpac for GW2 for 2015…

I’m holding my breath that’s why we don’t see the “fruits” yet of the entire ANet team (per your own words), that indeed you have about 100+ people dedicated to the first xpac which will actually be announced at some point during this autumn (or fall, as you call it)

honestly, your post shows a huge problem with this policy, it leads to more baseless expectations, and wild predictions. Left without any information, people will assume, and guess, thus creating expectations(the optimist), or on the other side giving the feeling expectations arent ever going to be met (the pessismist) both of which are bad for the reality of whatver is going on.
Both of which also have very little to do with the realities.

Stiofan.6720:

If TWITTER itself can do this why can’t we?

http://www.webme.co.uk/blog/2012/06/removing-a-follower-in-twitter-without-blocking/

on twitter followers actually get real info on you, which is not the case in gw2.

also comparing essentially the market standard in social media, with gw2 when it comes to a social media app or use is off.

twitter is the space shuttle of social media gw2 friends list is a tricycle.

I mean if they have time sure, but this doesnt seem like something heavily needed. I think you are overly sensitive to people knowing you exist

why dont you just stop looking at your followers list, it is not your friends list. Why do you care who can see you online if you arent talking to them.
“If you are not on someone’s friend list, you will only see their user name and whether they are online or offline. "

this all the information they have on you if you do not friend them back.

Beldin.5498:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Problem is, the most content that they’ve released fills no purpose. EotM is 24/7 karmatrain at best and Southsun Cove is as redundant as any other PvE map.

And thats the reason why an expansion with 20 maps will also change nothing.
People consume them in 20 hours .. and then say : Give us something new ..

The problem is that many players including me don’t want a level cap with a
new gear grind .. however exactly that is what makes people play all the new maps
in other MMOs with every single character .. because the NEED to do all the quests
there to get to the next level cap .. and then to gear up again.

Here we can say : oh .. those maps are boring and redundant .. because there is no
need to play them .. and even with a new level cap we can still level to 90 or whatever
in Queensdale thanks to the mentoring system.

you ever play guild wars 1? ffxi? both maintained one level cap throughout at least 3 expansions/campaigns.

What makes people do the content? interesting new things to do in interetsing areas, with interesting rewards.

It has been done, it can be done again. If anet is wondering how, they can PM me, i will give them free ideas.

Boneheart.3561:

phys.7689:

Boneheart.3561:

Xillllix.3485:

… it’s taking so long for new content to be released.

What new content? Examples are fine, I would like to better understand what hasn’t been added.

more than 2 new skills per class
new weapons per proffession
more than 2 new maps
new proffesions
new dungeons
more than 5 new traits per class
lots of dynamic event chains
new game modes
more difficult content (because people who keep playing tend to improve at it)

basically an evolved version of all the type of things that were introduced on release of the game, and some new things that werent there

especially since this year started really little has been added, first year had a couple big ones like fractals, guild missions, a number of new jumping puzzles, and some dynamic events.

i understand that you are satisfied, but most players expect, within 2 years to get some order of content on the level of a GW1 campaign/expansion or FFXI WoW expansion.

And I would call those players unrealistic.

New skills would be nice, if there weren’t already balances made every update and threads clamoring for bug fixes. They can wait.

I agree, underwater could use a new weapon or two, but I can’t think of an appropriate item. But I’ve heard there’s even more balancing/bug issues there, and they removed my favorite SPvP map because of it.

Now you’re just being silly, we’ve had at least half a dozen new maps.

More professions, huh, just pile them on, the bugs and balances will just fix themselves if they reach a critical mass.

We’ve had a few new dungeons, too, c’mon now, this list isn’t standing up.

I am patiently waiting for new Traits, they clearly didn’t want to just toss new ones at us and are playing with the idea of unlocking them. I think we’ll get more, but they’ll likely compound the bugs and balances.

I remember reading that they added some simple Dynamic Events quite a while ago and they went unnoticed. In my experience, most people can’t be asked to stick around for a chain unless it’s a World Boss. So that’s pretty demoralizing.

More modes in SPvP would be nice, I’m waiting on that. Seems like they’re testing the waters with that Team Deathmatch they introduced.

There’s definitely harder content being introduced, quite recently but not only just.. Now? If the difficulty is just ramped up, it’ll fall into exclusive territory and this is an inclusive game. So players will have to acclimate.

And who told you this lie that I’m “satisfied”? You’ve erred greatly in this understanding.

why is it unrealistic to get what most other MMOs deliver within the first two years?

Waiting on balance and bug fixes to do anything, means never doing anything, keep in mind in two years some bugs havent been fixed from beta. Another two years before getting new skills/etc would probably be a very bad idea imo.

the new weapons probably wouldnt be underwater, because a great amount of people dont like underwater combat, and it wouldnt change the game much, because underwater is a pretty limited amount of content

we have had only 2 new maps southsun and dry top

we had no new dungeons, and one new path in one dungeon

we did have fractals, which imo is one of the best things they have done, so i will give them that.

as for balance/bugs before new proffesions, then you may as well wait forever, because their is still balance going on in WoW 10 or something years later. Waiting for perfect balance before making new classes is not really a thing that is done. Even look at fighting games, they add new charachters while alos rebalancing old charachters.

they did try to add new dynamic events, but they made them fairly self contained and random. The best dynamic events tell a story, or lead up to some interesting areas/events. And Even then they need some systems for tracking/lore unlocking in conjunction with dynamic events. To be honest dynamic events are one of their best features, and they have not really evolved the system very well at all. The world is actually using less/simpler dynamic events as time goes on.

they had really good expandable, evolvable idea and content on release and most of it has stagnated.

Immensus.9732:

To all players: don`t be greedy. The content you are getting every 6 months is equal to a full expansion in other MMOs. New areas? EOTM, Southsun Cove, Dry Top (and 2 pvp maps) . New features? Wardrobe, Traits, New armors/weapons. New content? this is kinda lacking but still, 1 new dungeon, dungeons paths, fractals, SAB. AND ABOVE ALL, Story wise: we are getting roughly 1-2 hours of story play every 2 weeks, lets do the math, on average we get 1.5 hours SO… 1.5H every 2 weeks on a 6(?) month Season = 18 Hours of story, that is equal to a 60$ worth new Single player RPG story amount, the only difference is that you getting it for free, and you getting it 2-3 times per year. Thats a lot of effort, i my self can be disappointed sometimes with some features that we havent got yet that i think are essential if you want to make your MMO competitive, like Housing, Dueling, more legendaries etc. but we got to think that the Devs are people too and there have limitations on how much they can produce. The only thing that they should probably do from their perspective is become more open to the players and start talking about things on development more often and with honesty.

you have low standards
this is what ffxiv gets about every 3 months, NON EXPANSION
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/c96b9e090eb60d1ebd1b89e20e582d59335acd84

this is what = a gw1 campaign
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Factions

ffxi expansion
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Treasures_of_Aht_Urhgan

btw 18 hours for a single player rpg is really bad, generally they used to aim for 40 hours, but that has increased recently, with stuff like skyrim dark souls, etc.

im not saying they have done nothing, but they are not even close to an expansions worth of content from the expansions i am used to.

I think you are mixing in a lot of different things

Rarity effects price
Demand is sometimes effected by rarity, but not as directly as you assume.

The most desired items, are not often the most expensive, or the rarest.

Ohoni.6057:

I think polls wouldn’t have valuable results because of this:

Q: How important is SAB for you?
A: Very important —> tons of people
B: Neutral
C: I can’t stand it

Anet: Ok, you voted for SAB, our map-designers will now stop working on new maps and focus on SAB only. You’ll get world 3 in 3 months, no new maps in the near future.
Us: O______o noooooo

As long as we have no idea how ressources are managed and what needs to be sacrificed in order to make something else happen, polls would make little sense imho.

A fair point, but maybe they could ask better questions? Maybe they could give us options like they did during the Election, in which they presented two different Fractals. They could say “which would you prefer to be released within six months?”
A. SAB World 3
B. An Aetherblade Retreat style dungeon
C. A Not So Secret-like jumping puzzle in the new zone

Probably give longer and more complex descriptions for each, to let people know vaguely what it would consist of.

Package up three options that would involve the same basic dev team, let players choose between them. The ones that fail could be re-added to new polls for the next series.

problem with polls is they are exclusive to other options. For example, what if you like SAB AND ls2? There are also other problems.
I think probably they should just ask people to +1 things they like somehow.

tolunart.2095:

laokoko.7403:

Even if twilight is very common, I would still want one. I dont’ care if twlight is not rare.

I think some poster’s assumption is people want twilight only because it is rare.

Most people want it because it’s rare. It’s valuable because there is a high demand, and the demand comes from the fact that it is extremely rare. Note that “most people” is not “everyone.” That a tiny minority of players just like the look and don’t care about rarity/bragging rights doesn’t change the fact that the majority do care.

actually, this is not true. Twilight and Sunrise are probably the most common legendaries, and they are also the most expensive. This proves that it is not the rarity that makes people want an item.
the least common legendaries would be the underwater ones, because nobody makes them on purpose. And yet their value is incredibly low.

truth is people want legendaries because they are a big hard to do goal, and because they like the effects.

Now, thing to keep in mind is hard to do goal is not directly linked to rarity. You can have something very rare, that is not hard to do at all, like playing the lottery.

The reason people like the big hard to do goal, is because it gives them an objective and purpose. However balancing this, you still want the player to feel like they want more, or to do it again when they win.

Was just reading an article on MTG and they were saying how you should try to design a game where you dont drag it on so much that when they beat it they feel like it went on too long. I would say many of the contents in GW2 have suffered from this.

Vayne.8563:

phys.7689:

MRA.4758:

Oh, really? Didn’t knew that. Well, then let’s see what we free updates got for our full box price in GW1 when compared to GW2:

GW1 Prophecies:

• Sorrow’s Furnace
• Tomb of the Primeval Kings revamp
• Helloween quests
• Wintersday quests
• constant balancing updates

GW2 (blatantly copied from the wiki):

• Mad King’s Labyrinth zone,
• Reaper’s Rumble and Lunatic Inquisition activities,
• Mad King’s Clock Tower jumping puzzle
• Ascent to Madness dungeon
  ….

Yeah, now I see what you mean.

Serious question: Is there really someone here who bought the game back in Summer 2012 and honestly assumed that we would receive that amount of constant updates and support for the price of a single boxed copy?

~MRA

i would have prefered to pay for expansions if it had gw1 amount of content.
I would spend more in the gem store just to support anet if i liked the stuff coming out.

i dont feel the vitriol that some people feel, but honestly, while i do think the dev teams have been working hard, and spent some big time on some things, it hasnt been that effective at making the game feel deeper or more expansive. Die hard gw1 anet fans i know that were at pax multiple years at all the anet events, dont even plan to go to the booth this year.

I cant say everyone is unsatisfied, i dont think everyone is. But even some people who really liked this game barely log on. I dont think the content that has been released is the content people really wanted to see. They basically wanted new game modes, more skills, new full maps, new stories (which they have done a bit of) new explorations, refined systems, expansions of systems.

You just got to step back and really look, and what they have put out doesnt renew the game experience. Thats ultimately what every MMO has to do to survive, as much as Qol stuff is nice, it doesnt make the game feel new and exciting.

Where is the new and exciting game patch? you guys are gamers, you remember staying up all night for that new content to hit, and explore and find and get all these new things thats what ya got to recapture in order to keep a lot of people engaged

You’re assuming no one was/is excited about Drytop, no one is excited about the living story. I’m pretty sure Anet has metrics that show otherwise.

People say it’s an hour’s worth of content, but I think people are farming a lot of that content.

So you’ve got a lot of groups here.

There are farmers, who might be trying for a kite and might be hanging out in Drytop because you know, a lot of tier 6 mats there. You’ve got crafters, there are some people who love that and collect every recipe and there are new recipes. There are new weapon skins for skin collectors, in game, not through a black lion trading post. There are kites which some people like because they like toys or even modest speed boosts.

There are people who like gambling and farm keys to open chests. There are people who enjoy story and achievements like me, and so that takes some time. Not everyone gets that stuff the first try or goes to Dulfy for hints either.

You’ve got older adventure game players who actually search for hidden coins. It’s not one small group of people all in Drytop for the same reason.

Some people just like jumping and it provides a lot of that too.

its cool, but it doesnt renew the game in the sense i have gotten with the expansions of GW1, FFXI, etc. Not to say it doesnt appeal to some, but the people saying they loved the game on release, and even in year one, who now say the game feels the same arent lying, or just crazy people who want an insane amount of stuff. They are people who are used to a certain level of new content withing 1-2 years that expands the strong points of the game.

LS is good for the type of stuff you get in between expansions, but it doesnt compare, for many people to the experience you get when the big content release hits in other games.

Elsdragon.5109:

Flytrap.8075:

Elsdragon.5109:

Flytrap.8075:

Vayne.8563:

I’m sorry did Anet advertise expansion level content 2 years ago? I was playing 2 years ago…like the day the game launched in headstart and I don’t remember seeing expansion level content advertised at launch.

You must have a bad memory then.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/18/guild-wars-2-to-get-consistent-free-updates-expansion/

I don’t quite see how that translate into a promise for “expansion level content”.

Colin Johanson – September 2012

“No need to buy them, Gw2 will feature consistent free content updates and in-game events going forward. Our goal is to make it so you get more from Gw2 for free than you get from a game you pay a subscription for. On top of a large amount of free bonus content, we will be expanding on offerings in the Black Lion Trading Company going forward, as well as be doing large-scale expansion content down the road.”

“We do appreciate that you’d like to buy lots of new content, but we’d prefer to give a lot of it to you for free, cause that’s what we think a responsible MMO company does!”

Okay. I think you’re mistaken then, or deluded. Whichever. What he says is that instead of leaving the original GW2 as is and then creating multiple expansions that you’d have to buy, they’ll keep adding stuff to the GW2 that you’ve already bought. Large-scale expansion content down the road from what I understood then and now is continuously adding more content (which they have). Sure they may not be much on their own, but together they could make up a whole expansion.

What you’re asking for by saying “expansion level content” is a huge batch of new content all at once. To quote another forumer here:

ipan.4356:

The solution is to create more content.

New maps.
New dungeons.
New class.
New weapons.
New skills.
New playable race.

Maybe some new DE’s.

That seems very selfish and inconsiderate to ask of them on top of the constant added features and content they dish out, don’t you think?

id rather them ditch most of that other content for the stuff he mentioned, but thats just my op

MRA.4758:

Oh, really? Didn’t knew that. Well, then let’s see what we free updates got for our full box price in GW1 when compared to GW2:

GW1 Prophecies:

• Sorrow’s Furnace
• Tomb of the Primeval Kings revamp
• Helloween quests
• Wintersday quests
• constant balancing updates

GW2 (blatantly copied from the wiki):

• Mad King’s Labyrinth zone,
• Reaper’s Rumble and Lunatic Inquisition activities,
• Mad King’s Clock Tower jumping puzzle
• Ascent to Madness dungeon
  ….

Yeah, now I see what you mean.

Serious question: Is there really someone here who bought the game back in Summer 2012 and honestly assumed that we would receive that amount of constant updates and support for the price of a single boxed copy?

~MRA

i would have prefered to pay for expansions if it had gw1 amount of content.
I would spend more in the gem store just to support anet if i liked the stuff coming out.

i dont feel the vitriol that some people feel, but honestly, while i do think the dev teams have been working hard, and spent some big time on some things, it hasnt been that effective at making the game feel deeper or more expansive. Die hard gw1 anet fans i know that were at pax multiple years at all the anet events, dont even plan to go to the booth this year.

I cant say everyone is unsatisfied, i dont think everyone is. But even some people who really liked this game barely log on. I dont think the content that has been released is the content people really wanted to see. They basically wanted new game modes, more skills, new full maps, new stories (which they have done a bit of) new explorations, refined systems, expansions of systems.

You just got to step back and really look, and what they have put out doesnt renew the game experience. Thats ultimately what every MMO has to do to survive, as much as Qol stuff is nice, it doesnt make the game feel new and exciting.

Where is the new and exciting game patch? you guys are gamers, you remember staying up all night for that new content to hit, and explore and find and get all these new things thats what ya got to recapture in order to keep a lot of people engaged

Boneheart.3561:

Xillllix.3485:

… it’s taking so long for new content to be released.

What new content? Examples are fine, I would like to better understand what hasn’t been added.

more than 2 new skills per class
new weapons per proffession
more than 2 new maps
new proffesions
new dungeons
more than 5 new traits per class
lots of dynamic event chains
new game modes
more difficult content (because people who keep playing tend to improve at it)

basically an evolved version of all the type of things that were introduced on release of the game, and some new things that werent there

especially since this year started really little has been added, first year had a couple big ones like fractals, guild missions, a number of new jumping puzzles, and some dynamic events.

i understand that you are satisfied, but most players expect, within 2 years to get some order of content on the level of a GW1 campaign/expansion or FFXI WoW expansion.

Ayrilana.1396:

First off, precursors prices are not being manipulated nor would it ever be able to be manipulated for long enough time. Any attempts would results in losses more than likely. This has been discussed before in several threads, one of which I’m pretty sure that you were a part of.

This is indeed a player driven economy. You may want to revisit what the definition of a player driven economy or any _______-driven economy is.

player driven doesnt mean its the right answer, it just means its player driven. Many failed economies and political systems irl are “player driven” that doesnt mean they arent bad or failures.

That said, it isnt really objectively player driven, arenanet made the world, alter/control the supply, methods of aquisition,earning through various types of play, etc. Its more player driven than buying from an npc, but less player driven than say, the price of a ferrari.

Csele.1647:

So are we ever going to get any of this ?
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

After the end of the tournaments, the game will be the same since it was released!
Players really want:
New Dungeons/Fractals
New Dungeon/Fractal Rewards
PvP modes/maps
Guild Halls (GvG)
New Legendaries
New Weapon and Armor skins (No RNG)
Precursor Crafting

---

Its easy to see that Anet wont stop with the livingstory , So this means we are never going to see anything of that list ?? because of the lack of time to develop all the original main areas of the game ? maybe confirming that you no longer are interested in those areas would put an end to all this endless forum rage and complains .

to be honest this is the wrong question, because the answer is they definately want to work on those things and intend to.

when time permits

What you really want to know is when you will see some major developments on those fronts, and the current stance is, they wont tell you about anything like that whether one way or another

Palador.2170:

Suggestion: When you do the next CDI, don’t make it a thread.

Make it a sub-forum.

Part of the problem in the old CDI threads was how much of a mess they became. But if it’s a sub-forum with one main CDI thread, then when something interesting comes up you can say “That might be worth a more in-depth discussion in its own thread, go ahead and start one.” They can then make the new thread in the sub-forum, and that topic can get talked over in more detail without derailing the main thread.

Of course, any devs in the CDI could start new threads there as well. Such as “You say you want better rewards. What does ‘better rewards’ mean to you?” Getting details talked out and making sure everyone is on the same page without cluttering up the main topic.

When it’s over, lock the sub-forum and have someone work up a “final results” post. Keep that somewhere, and wipe the sub-forum when the next CDI starts.

i think this is probably the best tool to better organize the cdi without making a new application

tolunart.2095:

Expectations were managed as well as they could be. Every few months there was an update, the most recent being before the April update when it was mentioned that precursors were not addressed because of the massive changes to the system which superseded the work that had been done so far. Mostly the wardrobe function, which changed the way a lot of people see Legendaries (once the skin is unlocked it can be applied to any weapon, allowing you to easily dual wield Incinerator or carry Twilight on multiple toons). Demand for the items shot up and people have been complaining about the market ever since.

Imagine how many more kittens would be thrown if the number of people working on Legendaries had double or tripled on top of this increase in demand. The devs are human and they got excited about a project and said too much, too quickly. Once bitten, twice shy.

Now, despite the periodic updates, since it was first mentioned I don’t think a month has gone by without someone posting a demand to know why the “precursor scavenger hunt” or “precursor crafting” hasn’t gone live yet. This started mere weeks after the idea was first mentioned in passing, as though players expected Anet to go from just talking about it to programmed and bug-free in less than a month. They haven’t even released specific details, and people still insist that it’s a scavenger hunt, that precursor crafting is a different system altogether, that Anet hasn’t said anything at all…

If the players posting questions had reasonable expectations it would be easy to give them a reasonable answer. But when they don’t bother to read what has already been posted, when they argue with anyone who tries to explain what’s going on, when they demand that changes be made immediately as though testing and bug-fixing were unnecessary and one guy can handle the whole job before his lunch break, those are not reasonable expectations.

Even within this thread you can see numerous examples of trolling, unreasonable expectations and unnecessary insults thrown directy in the devs’ faces when they try to explain what’s going on from their side of the keyboard. If management were to look at a few of the messages posted in the last few days, they would be more likely to shut down the forums altogether than to loosen restrictions on talking about current and future development plans.

i find that you guys dont see that clearly when defending.

The devs didnt act out of hand, it was an official vetted blog that talked about precursors and its date.

Also you mistakenly assume that the idea only happened cause a dev mentioned it, the idea happened because there was a large amount of players who didnt like where the precursor aquisition was taking the game. The idea was the result of the interaction between devs and players over what was, at the time, a big issue and still an issue up to today.

Its one of many issues, but it keeps coming up, and is such a big point of contention, that people constantly bring it up. Not saying anything about it doesnt change the reality that it was a problem.

Not talking about your solution to a problem doesnt make it dissappear, and talking about it helps people deal with it. This is reality. You cannot run from your problems by not talking about it, you cannot delete problems by not talking about it. They have falsely identified the problem is talking about something that didnt get delivered, the real problem is that they have yet to solve an existing problem.

Notice, new legendaries were also mentioned in the same blog, and yet there is a lot less outrage and threads about new legendaries, that is because, That issue was not as important. The problem is not that they didnt deliver on a promise, the problem is there has been an identified problem for 1.5 years of high importance to many players, that has not been solved
these threads would have popped up faster and more often without any promises than they would have had such statements not been made.

As for being mean to developers, i agree some people are too combative and argumentive, hurt, etc, But that is life when dealing with a large amount of people. They will react differently. Also one cannot conflate all disagreement, and criticisim as an attack. I take criticism very poorly as well, but when i reflect after the fact, its useful. It is annoying to have things you work towards and put a lot of effort to be insulted, i know this, and yet still, at the end of the day, you have to realize your intent was to create something great, and that feedback is more likely to get you closer to that unreachable goal than to withdraw.

there are two facets of the current player interaction
one is about input, you say it has no value as far as you can see. And in some cases i dont think its that important, but if you have an iterative development system you need feedback from many sources, customers, developers, media, etc. Your development loop depends on getting feedback and re baking your product. It is a lot less necessary if you have a visionary development style. IE, i make what i know is good, and you will love it because i am good. Anet says that they dont have a visionary development style, they refine based on feedback, so they actually need our feedback more, they dont really know what people want/will react till they ask them. There is nothing wrong with that, but it requires more communication.

the other facet is about players as customers and keeping them engaged with your product, as well setting expectations(or heightening it). The examples about other industries were more toward that facet of what company communication does.

Boneheart.3561:

phys.7689:

Boneheart.3561:

I’m seeing about a dozen, maybe, posts mentioning that policy should be scrapped? The number one topic I remember sparking fiery outrage, like the Centralia mine, is precursor crafting. It seemed quite natural, at least to me I dunno I’m weird, to not want to share anything that wasn’t so close to being complete that it might as well be kissing the finish line.

Are there some factors I’m missing, gaps in this incident that would justify the rampant contempt? Am I leaving out too many words, causing confusion or misunderstanding? How can ArenaNet exercise transparency on conceptual content without being susceptible to vilification (general issue, nothing to do with who’s innocent or guilty in the precursor crafting incident)?

its natural for some people.
Its also in general a really bad policy for keeping people engaged with long breaks in things delivered of value.

Its also a really bad policy if you dont have a visionary style of development. If your main method of refining products is about gathering feedback and reworking things, anything that lowers your feedback is a really bad idea.

basically there is two ways to keep people engaged, constantly deliver winners often, or make big plans and talk about them and deliver on them. Whats good for some situations, is really bad in others, close to the vest communication is like this as well

That is subjective, for one, and secondly you do acknowledge that at least there have been deliveries. I heard one particular game went fourteen months without an update.

I was under the impression that ‘feedback’ and ‘reworking’ is for finalized content, whereas ‘input’ is for conceptual, yes? I don’t feel players’ input is as important as many on the forum make it out to be.

I’m not sure what you mean by “engaged”, playing the game? Surely something is being done correctly, almost two years in and the Worlds haven’t been collapsed into just two (nine, in this case).
Talking about “big plans” and delivering sounds pretty easy. You lay out what’s to be done, and then release the finished product. I have heard about there being more than a handful of details (internal obstacles), though, that make this not so easy. I feel player input wouldn’t be important at all, then, there would be no room for it.

its not exactly subjective, this strategy has been in play for about a year, and it has not worked. All released indications of current NA/EU playership and spending that i have seen are down. As far the climate and the feeling of player/company relationship, many indications say that is suffering as well.

feedback can happen at any stage of development, and its often most effective earlier into development.

• For ex: If i decide i want to invent a finger warming keyboard, and i talk to 100 people and they say they would rather have a finger massaging keyboard, that is feedback, and it saved me a lot of time, and a lot money to get it while in the brainstorm phase rather than the finished product phase.

For an iterative development system, the more points of feedback you have, the better your product will be, because your product depends on getting feedback in order to refine itself.

going by the world hasnt collapsed isnt really a good metric, by the time the world has collapsed its usually too late to save it. What we do know, is profits are down, public metrics on hours played are down, and it seems that there is a disconnect between players and developers

talking about big plans (by big i mean overall plans) and delivering is actually the industry standard, and the standard of many industries which have a long time between products/services.
Movies, Tv, most other games, automobiles, comics, books, music just a few industries off the top of my head, where i can generally find out what a company in the field roughly has planned for the upcoming months, and the overall directions they are trying to go in.

personally i understand wanting to keep things close to your vest, but its not really a good idea in this situation from all indications.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

phys.7689:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Prysin.8542:

which in hindsight can be seen as a bad policy. Just look at the dissatisfaction on these forums, that policy is the sole cause of that. […]

I understand your point, but how would you suggest to prevent future outrages about features that get announced (like the precursor hunt) and possibly scrapped later on because it doesn’t meet Anets standards?

People will scream that they’d rather want a bad implementation than nothing at all, but this would lead to a game where half-baked stuff is implemented which would lower the quality of the game as a whole.

you dont, thats what it all boils down to. Yes you create expectations you dont fullfill, but many times its worse to create no expectations than to fail to meet one. Also explaining WHY you didnt meet expectations, and HOW you plan to meet them asap is a HUGE means of dealing with expectations that arent met.

The reality is that the announcement of the precursor scavenger hunt SAVED anet for many many many months. They had a big problem boiling, and knowing it was in the works HELPED anet and players grin and bear it because they had hope for the future. Never announcing that feature would have helped no one, and hearing peoples feedback about the concept probably helped anet scrap some ideas that they may have gone with if they didnt announce that idea.

precursor hunt announcement gave anet a lot more benefit than not doing it would have done, the results were bad because they didnt deliver, the results would have been worse had they said nothing about it 1 year ago, and we still had no solutions, or if they had gone forward with a system that all feedback that came from the announcement shows would be a bad answer.

short version, for arenanet, the precursor announcement was actually a way better thing than the current system would allow, even with its negative backlash.

The precursor hunt is simply something we just wasn’t ready to be discussed. Case in point therefore regarding policy.

This said I personally feel that there is room for maneuver and a policy adjustment to be more inclusive.

I am really looking forward to seeing how the next CDI goes as that could lead to some more open discussion for sure.

Chris

P.S: Going back to bed for a bit.

though my first inclination is to go into why it was something that needed to be discussed, and i stand by that statement 120% logically and upon looking at the results of those announcements, we probably wont agree, and its not really that important you agree with me.

I do however think its important that whatever communication system/strategy you guys come up with can somehow give people realistic expectations for the overall direction of the game/and development of the game. Also i believe it has to allow you to get some real feedback on features that are in development so you can avoid near misses, (good idea not so great implementation situations)

I feel like these two issues are central to having positive outcomes from player communication.

its a very real statement that people have no idea what the future of gw2 holds, and that isnt working well for a lot of people (especially people who have been playing longer)

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Prysin.8542:

which in hindsight can be seen as a bad policy. Just look at the dissatisfaction on these forums, that policy is the sole cause of that. […]

I understand your point, but how would you suggest to prevent future outrages about features that get announced (like the precursor hunt) and possibly scrapped later on because it doesn’t meet Anets standards?

People will scream that they’d rather want a bad implementation than nothing at all, but this would lead to a game where half-baked stuff is implemented which would lower the quality of the game as a whole.

you dont, thats what it all boils down to. Yes you create expectations you dont fullfill, but many times its worse to create no expectations than to fail to meet one. Also explaining WHY you didnt meet expectations, and HOW you plan to meet them asap is a HUGE means of dealing with expectations that arent met.

The reality is that the announcement of the precursor scavenger hunt SAVED anet for many many many months. They had a big problem boiling, and knowing it was in the works HELPED anet and players grin and bear it because they had hope for the future. Never announcing that feature would have helped no one, and hearing peoples feedback about the concept probably helped anet scrap some ideas that they may have gone with if they didnt announce that idea.

precursor hunt announcement gave anet a lot more benefit than not doing it would have done, the results were bad because they didnt deliver, the results would have been worse had they said nothing about it 1 year ago, and we still had no solutions, or if they had gone forward with a system that all feedback that came from the announcement shows would be a bad answer.

short version, for arenanet, the precursor announcement was actually a way better thing than the current system would allow, even with its negative backlash.

Boneheart.3561:

I’m seeing about a dozen, maybe, posts mentioning that policy should be scrapped? The number one topic I remember sparking fiery outrage, like the Centralia mine, is precursor crafting. It seemed quite natural, at least to me I dunno I’m weird, to not want to share anything that wasn’t so close to being complete that it might as well be kissing the finish line.

Are there some factors I’m missing, gaps in this incident that would justify the rampant contempt? Am I leaving out too many words, causing confusion or misunderstanding? How can ArenaNet exercise transparency on conceptual content without being susceptible to vilification (general issue, nothing to do with who’s innocent or guilty in the precursor crafting incident)?

its natural for some people.
Its also in general a really bad policy for keeping people engaged with long breaks in things delivered of value.

Its also a really bad policy if you dont have a visionary style of development. If your main method of refining products is about gathering feedback and reworking things, anything that lowers your feedback is a really bad idea.

basically there is two ways to keep people engaged, constantly deliver winners often, or make big plans and talk about them and deliver on them. Whats good for some situations, is really bad in others, close to the vest communication is like this as well

Behellagh.1468:

Colin, I suggest that the upper management watch this old Twilight Zone episode and realize keeping people in the dark due to lack of communication is only making things much worse than backtracking on statements when an idea doesn’t pan out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monsters_Are_Due_on_Maple_Street

Without communication, those who are unhappy start spinning the most fantastic stories about your priorities with no way for those who enjoy the game’s more relaxed pace a way to disprove them. You are isolating your supporters while letting your critics run open loop.

And just like that episode, your policy of silence about development is rapidly becoming your own worse enemy.

We don’t mind disappointment if you are straightforward, honest and timely with us. We simply don’t like being strung along only to be surprised that the features we were hoping for were long since canceled early in the development stage and we are just finding out about it now. That causes genuine player rage, even among the so called “white knights” on the forum.

Nobody likes to be treated like mushrooms.

bellegah basically hit the nail on the head, the only way not saying anything would work is if you constantly releasing great new content before anyone could even want it. Which watching this year that doesnt seem to be the case. Their are some cool stuff, but not enough to have people mostly worryless.

not being able to say anything about anything is really bad marketing, and i also think it doesnt lead to a responsive iterative development.

To be honest, as far as i have seen last years development, and last years communication felt more satisfying than what we are seeing this year so far.

Now i know that the decsion has come down from high up BUT that doesnt mean its a good decsion, and part of feedback of the players is telling you when you arent making a good decsion, and media black out, as far as i have seen is not helping anything. Whatever you come up with, I just cant see knowing nothing about what the future plans of your service are going to be can work well for this type of product.

you are essentially looking at having to constantly win back your customers rather than maintain them. Because when you know nothing, the best option when you arent happy is to dissappear and come back when you hear something better is happening. But many times, by the time that happens, one is no longer that engaged in things, also by that time whatever is supposed to bring you back probably has to be bigger and more attractive than what would have kept people.

Short version, as many have said, its not really a great strategy no matter who wants it to be that way, and you will likely have many of the same problems as long as that strategy is the standard operating procedure

Honestly, based on a lot of the info that is finally coming out now, after you guys have not spoken for awhile, i think it is worth it to re examine and say what is GW2 going to be about from now on.

Things have changed, as they tend to in this world.
SAB is something thats on the backburner
Dungeons are not something that you are looking to expand, develop, make new.

What exactly is the future of the content of GW2 going to be mostly about? I think the overall vision and direction of GW2 is really the big question everyone has.

this is a question that you guys should have already decided internally, so i dont think its unreasonable that you tell your customers what that is.

just to be clear, this isnt really even about specific features, but more overall.
like, we feel the future of the gw2 game lies in living world and improving general quality of life issues.
or We believe GW2 needs to strongly develop its guild systems/interactions and focus on open world challenging content
or we believe GW2 is about a deeper progression, and expansion of charachters abilities

and dont say we want to do so many things, because want is irrelevant, what is your focus for the forseeable future is the real question, with a real answer, that your most likely as a company already know

Obtena.7952:

They haven’t figured it out because they run into the roadblocks that have already been discussed. Even they recognize that increasing precursors will affect the markets in ways they would rather not have to deal with. Not only is there a philosophical issue with legendary increases, they can’t ignore the practical issues either. So many factors people are ignoring here.

so what are you saying?

Is there a need for another means of obtaining precursors or not?
is anet right that precursors crafting is needed
or is anet wrong, and the current system is as it should be?

Soooo yeah makes sense no one ever comes to this subforum. Dungeons are basically just a a legacy format now.

what it boils down to, is that too much content is introduced into the gem store, rather than through gold.

gem to gold ratio is essentially always about how valuable in game gold is as compared to gems.
which comes down to what you can buy with it. For many players what you can buy with gold isnt as valuable by far as what you can buy with gems. Things wont change until what you can buy with gold is more valuable.

Obtena.7952:

Ohoni.6057:

But this is a game. Everything is “earned” only in the sense that you jumped through the hoops that the developers placed for you. If the developers decide that they want those hoops lower to the ground, then the people who climb through those hoops are just as entitled as you were. “Earning” is always subjective.

Sure, but again … what is your compelling argument that the hoops should be lower? I don’t see them.

Ohoni.6057:

What reason is there for ever changing anything in a game other than “because the players would prefer it to be different?”

There are lots of reasons for changing things in a game other than players preferring to be different. Just because you can’t think of one for increasing legendaries doesn’t make that position a reasonable fallback.

thing is, anet has already acknowledged that the current method of precursor obtaining is not performing in the fashion that they had planned. Problem is they havent figured out what to do about it in 2 years.

Ohoni, is essentially saying they could make this current system more bearable at least

Unless, you think that what they said about needing and developing precursor crafting was a lie.

sorudo.9054:

kuittaa.7360:

sorudo.9054:

sorudo.9054:

… i will never ever exchange my gems, gems i bought with hard earned money…

ah, so you’re saying that if i want to buy something quite expensive i need to waste about a year of farming just to get it?

oh and btw, when i buy gems and exchange it for gold i earn it just as much, the difference is that the exchange is screwing the real money payers and promoting the gold farmers, the one thing Anet should reverse.

If you never use gems -> gold anyways, why does this bother you? In any case, you can farm gold either in game, or in real life. Decision is yours.

read closer, i will never exchange gem->gold with this low exchange rate, i will if i get a respectable amount.
yesterday i was checking what i could get for 30 gems, just a pathetic 3g.
if i bought it with gold then i could understand but i bought the gems with real money, i would expect a bit more then such a pathetic amount.

30 gems is 36 cents, would you work for 60 minutes for 72 cents? are you seriously saying that paying someone 72 cents per hour is way too much?
I personally dont understand why anyone besides master TP traders is selling gold for gems.

only explanation, is though they dont make much per hour, they dont have enough things of any value to spend gold on.

Ensign.2189:

Ohoni.6057:

The way they play is not the way you play, and does not provide as much gold, but it is not lazy, or unskilled, just not profitable.

No, I’m drawing a firm line in the sand – if you cannot farm gold at 25% of the rate that I do when intentionally doing some of the least profitable stuff in the game, you suck. You’re making gold at less than 10% the rate of what a practiced farmer does, and you’ve been doing that for years.

That shows either a marked lack of skill or a marked lack of effort, and probably both. Drop the whole ’they’re not lazy or unskilled’ schtick. Yes, they are. This game is not even remotely difficult, and if you’ve been playing for years and have not learned even the most minimal of basics about making money, you aren’t trying.

even though i think ohoni tends towards being a little too much towards the everyone should be able to do anything side of things.

Fact is many types of gameplay do not reward much gold.
personal story, and now living story, fractals, jumping puzzles, map completion, dynamic events that arent the go to farm events, story mode dungeons.

Also, you talk about items you get like the average player has no costs, leveling crafting, now, unlocking traits, maps/waypointing, making ascended, getting runes/sigils, exotics, these things basically use up many of the materials you say people should be selling, and they are basic tasks that lead towards best in slot, or general expected gameplay. Not to mention.

many many many players dont play the game to earn money, Precursors have become the economic pvp part of legendaries, but i wonder if that was the initial intent

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Serophous.9085:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Darmikau.9413:

I don’t want to want to derail the thread, but yes absolutely we have discussed player feedback about these areas of the game.

This right here is the start players have been asking for. I’m not going to say something like this is a perfect answer, because it still leaves the who, the when, and the how completely ambiguous, but it’s at least a confirmation that ‘yes, we’ve seen it’.

As a roleplayer you have no idea what an absolute sigh of relief it is to hear it’s been discussed. For that area, and many others, it would be a much greater relief if someone came in an talked explicitly about the discussions, but as a start, just being acknowledged is so much a step beyond the silence.

Hi,

We read many forums all the time, we just need to do a better job of communicating that and working to discuss topics.

In retrospect the CDI break has probably been to long as well (That’s my fault).

Chris

First new CDI topic, how to improve communication between devs and community :p

That is a good topic.

Chris

honestly, though that might be valuable, i would rather have CDIs that more closely represent things you are currently thinking about/developing. It would save time to have more player feedback earlier in your process.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Thanks everyone for giving us some feedback on this system we’ll meet internally and discuss this system some more as I think there are a lot of valid points being brought up here.

I guess you guys were really busy, such that you are only now reacting to this feedback/issues/etc.

suggestion: If the turnaround time from implementation to iteration, is this long, perhaps you need to have feedback come along earlier in the proccess. assuming yall discuss this and come up with a plan tommorrow, i assume it would be up to 4 months earliest before we could see a change. That would be a 8 month turn around on iteration, which i think, is probably too when you have something that has a big effect.

SolviteSekai.9816:

Seriously this is the 6th mmo ive played where people expected the developers to communicate with the playerbase.

Nobody does that.

It’s not just Arenanet. I mean, I’m not defending them for it.

But SWTOR, TESO, WoW, FFXIV…

None of these games have people on the forums actually explaining things or discussing stuff with people.

Want to know why?

Because official forums are filled with the vocal negative minority and there is no freaking point in talking to these people.

If he says stuff is coming, its a lie.

If he doesn’t, Arenanet doesnt care.

If they say they care, its a lie.

There’s no point “discussing” the future of the game with a giant forum full of people who secretly want it to fail just so they can say I told you so.

actually ffxiv has monthly producer letters, where they talk about current features, and coming features, they anounced that they are working on a ninja class about a month ago.
the devs dont have to work hand in hand with the players, but they need to show where the vision is going, and show how they are responding to the players complaints/views.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/forums/642-Letters-from-the-Producer

look at how much they talk about there, and how they directly respond to current issues, and outline their overall plans.

so yeah, its far from unheard of.

i didnt do SAB last time, thought it would be back later, oh wells

maha.7902:

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

Mike O Brien.4613:

I know some are concerned about whether ArenaNet is communicating with you and listening and responding to your feedback. As you saw with yesterday’s announcement, we do. All of us at ArenaNet play the game with you, chat with you and read your forum posts, and work on the things that we think will most delight and entertain you.

We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.

Don’t read that as meaning that we don’t want to talk with you about the longer-term roadmap. The intention of the CDI threads is to talk with you about the roadmap. We want to talk design philosophy with you and hear how you want to see the game evolve. When those discussions trigger development, we’ll work internally until we have something we’re proud of before we’ll announce it.

A lot of the questions I’ve seen posted this week are as simple as this: does ArenaNet have an agenda to never do something? That’s almost never the case, and if it is the case you deserve to know and we’ll make sure we get more clear. In general the simple truth is this: when we’re not currently working on something, it’s because we’re working on something else instead that we think is more important for the game and community.

Our developers post on these forums on a voluntary basis, and in addition to developers, we have a community team who can clarify and be the bridge between players and developers. They’re ready to engage you on these topics. And I know it’s hard for the community team to engage players across all the forums and sites where these questions are being discussed, so I’m going to support the team in consolidating and focusing as necessary, so that we can be clear to the community where you can go to get a response.

See you in-game,
Mike O’Brien

Precursor scavenger hunt…

Tell me again how you don’t talk speculatively?

Please know I do appreciate the time and effort put in to making this post. One long overdue but at least it is now here… Just please don’t make statements that are blatantly untrue…

There are many other instances of features being said that they are being developed some even given a preliminary time table… all to be lost to oblivion never to be spoken of again… I just used precursor scavenger hunt as the most obvious example.

Was the scavenger hunt promised “in the last year”?

I don’t believe it was, therefore his point stands.

you are right, it seems that officially, at as a top level descion, probably based somewhat on that occurence, they have decided not to release long term plans. Overall i would say this year does not seem better for it in terms of releases, or how much players understand and anticipate the product.

I understand the reasoning, we dont want to make promises we dont fulfill, but the reality of that strategy is all around worse as far as i can see. However, he does run the company and he will do what he wants. I just dont think it will be successful at keeping people interested/aware and keeping a strong bead on what the players are looking for.

Mike O Brien.4613:

I know some are concerned about whether ArenaNet is communicating with you and listening and responding to your feedback. As you saw with yesterday’s announcement, we do. All of us at ArenaNet play the game with you, chat with you and read your forum posts, and work on the things that we think will most delight and entertain you.

We’ve set a clear policy in the past year: we don’t talk speculatively about future development. We don’t want to string you along. Creating fun is an uncertain business: sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t; sometimes we go back to the drawing board over and over before we get something right. If we make optimistic promises and then can’t deliver on them, everyone suffers. So when we attend a trade show or give an interview, we’re there to talk about what we’re getting ready to ship, not to speculate on what we might ship someday.

Don’t read that as meaning that we don’t want to talk with you about the longer-term roadmap. The intention of the CDI threads is to talk with you about the roadmap. We want to talk design philosophy with you and hear how you want to see the game evolve. When those discussions trigger development, we’ll work internally until we have something we’re proud of before we’ll announce it.

A lot of the questions I’ve seen posted this week are as simple as this: does ArenaNet have an agenda to never do something? That’s almost never the case, and if it is the case you deserve to know and we’ll make sure we get more clear. In general the simple truth is this: when we’re not currently working on something, it’s because we’re working on something else instead that we think is more important for the game and community.

Our developers post on these forums on a voluntary basis, and in addition to developers, we have a community team who can clarify and be the bridge between players and developers. They’re ready to engage you on these topics. And I know it’s hard for the community team to engage players across all the forums and sites where these questions are being discussed, so I’m going to support the team in consolidating and focusing as necessary, so that we can be clear to the community where you can go to get a response.

See you in-game,
Mike O’Brien

i hear you, and your the boss, so you can do what you want. But, i dont think its a good strategy to say nothing until you are ready to ship. Not only do you not get feedback early, but you have long periods of time where no one knows what the future holds.
If you can deliver constantly, it may work, but since you have long development cycles, it seems that this course will lead to people not really knowing what direction/what to expect at any given moment. Not only that, but you increase the chance that what you develop as a finished product is well intentioned but features a critical flaw. We have seen this happen with many of the releases, where something was almost great, but just off in some key way that could have been predicted early.

If you make CDI type projects more focused on specific thing you actually are working on or trying to develop, it is possible to walk this line.

Anyhow, thats my opinion, take it or leave it.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Astralporing.1957:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Don’t get me wrong, I want them to talk to us to, but I don’t think enough are ready to listen. Not here, anyway.

It is like that exactly because of the silence. the longer it lasts, the worse it gets. Yes, if Anet started talking to us right now, lot of people would not be ready for it, but it would shift the trend the other way. The longer they delay, the harder it will get to them when they decide to break the silence – and they will have to do that eventually. Unless of course they want to completely alienate the community – and, trust me, it can get way, way, worse than it is now.

I have to disagree because it was like this before they simply shut down on us as well. When they did chat on here, when they did try the looking ahead blogs every 6 months. They were communicating, which should have made it better, but instead only made it worse. After the last looking ahead blog, January first rolled around and in the first several days we started getting things like “2013 is over, did they keep their promises” when no promises had been made. When Colin had told us not even 2 months prior that certain things would not make their initial end of the year projections. They tried CDIs to let us have feedback (some of which they actually implemented) but no one (I use “no one” very loosely here, it’s not intended to be taken literally) had anything good to say about these attempts. They called it PR bullkitten and instead, it has spiraled further into the gutter to the point where they just don’t say anything until they know for sure they can it and it’s ready to be rolled out.

Of course it can get worse, but that’s going to further show them that it’s just not worth it to talk to the forum community. They do still talk to the twitter and facebook communities. Devs hop into the twitch chats and talk as well (when they can keep up with the flow of conversation). So, it’s not like they completely shut us out. We know they still read our posts, because they reference them… in twitch, in interviews, etc. They just don’t respond here typically, because it just not safe to do so.

the CDIs, overall had pages and pages of people submitting and discussing things, there really wasnt that much CDI is useless things.
Most of the CDI is useless things came later when they implemented things that missed the mark, or that people said they didnt want in that way. As well as certain big things being implemented that many people said they should have made the topic of the CDI.

To be honest, They probably need a system of review for their development style, many times some key aspect of their implementation ruins a good system. Much like the commander tag was about to be. Or halloween 2 rewards. etc.

anyhow, that aside, general this is the direction we are going/things we are working on is pretty normal. And people need to stop blaming users for being upset with anet not delivering, they should be able to deliver. Mistakes happen, but that doesnt mean they are ignored, or should be forgotten.

It is objectively not good that something they wanted to do 8 months ago is still in the brainstorm stage. Im not saying crucify them for it, but dont act like being 8 months off on a projection is all good either. Even if they never told us they intended to do it, IT IS STILL BAD that they cannot achieve their goals within 8 months of their intended time frame.

Just think, how many other unknown projects are extremely backlogged or late? what difference would that make to how people feel about the content and game if these things were in? Running away from saying intentions doesnt change that things need to be done. The problems remain, and many are overdue for being solved. Speaking to us actually probably helps them more than it hurts, because people (overall) tend to give some weight to intentions(to a limit) rather than the things you never said.

ipan.4356:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Creatures gain an exploration XP bonus when they have not been killed recently. Try killing yellow creatures you find on the less traveled areas of the map; they don’t get killed very often.

So, what you’re saying is, ‘Go kill 10 rats and bring their pelts back to me’?

like i said, its not about being yellow, its a bout not being killed recently, so head for hidden areas off the beaten paths.

Thiagugu.9682:

Woodenpotatoes, always the voice of reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGEGK7Sr4g

not really, he has decided that they will definately do sab, even though thats not what the interview says, he basically just says this what he believes for no reason

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I, too, have been mostly satisfied with the direction of the game. Do what you feel is best, ArenaNet. I don’t think ‘rioting’ is the way to accomplish anything. Even if it is virtual.

I would hope we, as a society, can move beyond such mob mentality and less than civil behavior. A peaceful protest would have been much more appropriate.

I am uncertain how a videogame without could be anything but a peaceful protest.
Also rioting isnt about being uncivilized, it almost always happens when society is not answering peoples desires through “civilized” channels. Essentially, most of the time, civil disobedience is a result of a failure of the govenment to give people any other viable and believable outlet for change.

anyhow, this case is suffeciently bloodless and harmless, so why even talk about civilized, what could be more civilized than protesting in a small contained video game.