Curse

athariel · Nov 25, 2009, 08:01 AM // 08:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darcy

3. Due to ArenaNet's server/game system, there is no way to "create" anything on the live servers. This was a purposeful decision on their part. Therefore, no amount of monthly fee would enable you to recover lost items or characters. It is not "lack of funds" that controls this, but the fact that they would need to rollback the server to restore one person's belongings.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Feedback_talk:Gaile_Gray

Quote:

Fred, I'm super, super sorry that you lost that. I have a version of that bow -- through my own gameplay and through the help of a few friends. (I keep all bows I'm given, so I sometimes have two that are close or even identical.) However, I don't think I have any, on any of my (many) Rangers, that are quite that awesome. As I've said before, one of the things I do is incident analysis and, occasionally, item retrieval and restoration, in the rare (and I do mean rare) occasions when we can do one. If I come across that bow, I will see if I can track it back to your account and if that's the case, I'll be in touch. (And folks, we do try to do that for all hacked accounts, it's just confoundedly difficult.)

your theory fails?

Scary · Nov 25, 2009, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale

Yes. But they never hit that ideal, and it was clear even when factions hit, that increasing the number of professions and skills every six months was going to be real problem.

They could have just sold lots of content with no new skills and no new professions but then they are on hiding to nothing as they had already released major new content for free in the form of Sorrows Furnace.

I can see GW2 hitting the same wall too.

The idea of GW with a monthly fee give me the Spinal Shivers, GW as it is with no Monthly fee, gave us all the players we have and had. And I play GW
for over 4 years now becouse it was and still is free.

But one thing I agree, is that I wouldn't mind to pay for a content update every 6 months. If they keep it within reason of vallue. So not like
the storage upgrade for overrated prices.

But Monthly fee would quit me playing GW immediately.

Rehnahvah Gahro · Nov 25, 2009, 08:59 AM // 08:59

You may be right about more content, paid GMs etc. but remember that GW would not have even come this far with fees. That was the single main reason to even pick up this game in a store and give it a try. Most people I know did so, because it had no subscription fees.
So even if your right about the (doubtful) benefit of paid GMs and more content (only real benefit I could see) you must ask yourself if it would be worth the loss in players. Because that would inevitably happen.

And only because WoW pulls it off doesn't mean others can do it too. In fact, it is the reason why others can't do it. Flies flock to the biggest pile of crap, they don't care if someone else takes a dump right in front of them, sure some of the flies may come over for a while and check it out, but the majority will stay right where they are, they know it worked for them since they where here, so why change? Especially if it costs them! Ok so now my explanation is a little off, but you get the picture.

So long story short: No, no, nooooooo to subscription fees, it would suck the life (what's left of it) out of Guild Wars.

QueenofDeath · Nov 25, 2009, 11:24 AM // 11:24

Please YES! YES! YES! subscription fees Anet/NCsoft just think of how much more money you will make and get rid of all the frustrating little kiddies of 12 and under and probably 13 to 15 as well since mommy and daddy aren't going to support their $20-$25 a month habit.

)

*Darcy* · Nov 25, 2009, 11:36 AM // 11:36

@athariel - You do notice that she said "rare occasions." This only happens if the hacker has not passed the item on to someone else. Otherwise, your item is gone. There is no way to recreate the item for you.

moriz · Nov 25, 2009, 01:41 PM // 13:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by QueenofDeath

Please YES! YES! YES! subscription fees Anet/NCsoft just think of how much more money you will make and get rid of all the frustrating little kiddies of 12 and under and probably 13 to 15 as well since mommy and daddy aren't going to support their $20-$25 a month habit.

)

you mean, it will get rid of yourself? awesome!

*cue queenofdeath's random football player reply here*

JR · Nov 25, 2009, 01:47 PM // 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Go look at NCSoft's financials. They could live on cash and legacy revenues for YEARS. They carry virtually no debt and have a low expenditure profile. It's debt that breaks you in this business. The resources to support GW are there. They simply aren't being utilized.

In a conference call back in May a senior NCSoft exec. said that ArenaNet's revenue was depleted, and they were almost entirely supported (financially) by NCSoft at that point. There was the update in April (menagerie, stylist...) that probably bumped ArenaNet's numbers for a while, but that wouldn't have lasted long.

It's hardly surprising that ArenaNet have been so reliant on NCSoft, given that they have had virtually their entire team working on the project - with no return on that investment - yet.

So, do you still think NCSoft could be doing more for ArenaNet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

PvE is a degenerate farmfest because ANet is unwilling to dedicate the resources to clean it up, and figures that they've already driven off everyone but the hardcore farmers anyway.

Did you miss the memo about UW? I heard they dedicated resources to cleaning it up and adding new content, and have pissed off the hardcore farmers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale

Was'nt people let go from Europe(e.g Brighton and Germany)? Fact is NCsoft laid off people, moved some others elsewhere for money reasons.

Pretty much all of the NCSoft Europe guys in Brighton were let go. A few (including Martin Kerstein) were relocated to NCWest. That had remarkably little impact on ArenaNet, if anything it was a benefit to have Martin over there. I believe he was the only one directly related to Guild Wars/ArenaNet at that time.

So, no. ArenaNet has never laid anyone off for 'restructuring' reasons. And, as has been pointed out, have only taken on more staff, where others have shed them.

Takeko Nakano · Nov 25, 2009, 01:59 PM // 13:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dzjudz

I'd rather not spend 480 euros to play a game 4 years.

I'm sure no one would want to spend hundreds of pounds/dollars/euros on anything if they can help it, but you get what you pay for. Plus if you bought all the games on release you already spent a bit.

Put it like this, I've given up on GW. I'd played the content so much I really, really had got bored with it. There are other games out there, but I'm not sure if I can be bothered to come back in 2011.

This was a risky financial structure, and whilst it allowed for the game to continue it meant eventually money would start to dry up. I think this is why development/release of GW2 has taken so long compared to when GWEN came out. If there had been pots of cash we'd already be in beta stage for GW2.

moriz · Nov 25, 2009, 02:20 PM // 14:20

EotN is an expansion, GW2 is a new game. typically games of GW's caliber takes around five years to develop. GW2 has been in development for around three to four, give or take a bit. from all indications it is progressing on schedule. the availability of subscription income (or lack thereof) doesn't seem to affect anything, especially if Anet has financial backing from NCsoft.

making a game is a creative process. you can't speed such processes by throwing money at it.

*Darcy* · Nov 25, 2009, 02:33 PM // 14:33

People tend to forget (or were't around at the time) that ArenaNet announced GW2 so early in its development stage to explain why there would be no more new Campaigns for GW. No other game company would have ever announced a project that was barely off the ground.

This has caused constant posts about "vaporware" and "going out of business." Meanwhile, NCSoft has continued to support ArenaNet through the development stage and the game will be released when it is ready. ArenaNet has watched many MMOs fail within months of release due to being released before completely finished. They got away with it with GW because the whole concept was new. But, with the higher expectations of the community now, they know that GW2 will need to be polished before release.

Takeko Nakano · Nov 25, 2009, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

making a game is a creative process. you can't speed such processes by throwing money at it.

You're missing the point. With more revenue/money they could have hired a large enough staff to keep content updates (proper ones, not gimmicks) going for GW whilst also working on GW2. As it is they've been forced to choose and therefore cut off the new content for GW.

moriz · Nov 25, 2009, 02:48 PM // 14:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Takeko Nakano

You're missing the point. With more revenue/money they could have hired a large enough staff to keep content updates (proper ones, not gimmicks) going for GW whilst also working on GW2. As it is they've been forced to choose and therefore cut off the new content for GW.

and judging by the response from this thread, if GW had a subscription fee, there wouldn't be a need for GW2, since Anet would have gone out of business a long time ago.

GW1 was designed to not have a subscription fee. if one gets tacked on, the game is not worth buying. you can say that it could have been redesigned, but there's no guarantee that the final product is any more compelling. you are assuming that with a subscription fee the game will automatically generate more revenue. that's not true. if anything it probably would generate less.

Fril Estelin · Nov 25, 2009, 04:18 PM // 16:18

The premise of the reasoning behind this thread is flawed: increase the volume of money via subscription and this makes GW1 so much better. This is nice in an ideal world, but impossible in practice: GW's success (=amount of money earned by Anet) is based significantly on the no-subscription rule. Break that rule and every player will compare GW's subscription to WoW's, or LOTRO's, or WAR's, or Aion's, or etc. (or the coming SW:TOR, STO, TSW, etc.) so it's very likely to significantly decrease the volume of money Anet would have (as moriz said: look at the number of people who said they wouldn't play GW if it had a subscription).

The fact that this situation is highly desirable (even Linsey clearly said she'd nothing less than love to do more areas) doesn't make it realistic, and in fact if you look more closely as many people did here, it's exactly the opposite.

Tl;dr: everyone wish this was possible, but it's not.

Shuuda · Nov 25, 2009, 05:23 PM // 17:23

I'll take the OP seriously when they can identify some of the fundamental changes GW would need in order to be viable as a pay to play game.

Shanaeri Rynale · Nov 25, 2009, 08:08 PM // 20:08

Now or when it was released?

You just cant compare how things are now in 2009, with how they were in 2005. It's easy to say oh such and such MMO failed or WAR was like that, and AoC did this etc. But they all came when the MMO market had hit saturation. Back in 2005 that had not happened yet.

People do that with new MMO's now. They assume it should have the same amount of content and slickness as WoW did, forgetting it took WoW 5 years to get where it is today.

Clobimon · Nov 25, 2009, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale

.....
We would have been able to.
- Have proper GM's who could retrieve deleted items/trashed accounts.
- Have a bigger development team releasing regular content updates
- Able to have a team of people re-skilling mobs and so adapting to fotm builds, and thus keeping us on our toes and busy
- More of a sense of 'hands on the wheel' by Anet, and so a more confident community
- More CM's who have the time to interact with the players.
.....

[b]That is what pay to play brings you.[/u]

These are some things you may expect from a p2p model, but it's bad to automatically expect these and other things because you're sending them $ every month. Proof that you don't always get what you pay for has been given in great glory by a Norwegian developer for 1 1/2 years, to include all of your points and more. Your point in particular about retrieving deleted items... this company's gm's handled similar things (with a long wait) for a while, until they got sick of doing it even with a dwindling playerbase and publicly announced they will not do it anymore. Not everyone agrees, but ANet proved to me and a lot of people that their format works and they run it well.

DreamWind · Nov 25, 2009, 09:11 PM // 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by trialist

I'm not sure what kind of accountability you expect from using financial pressure, except to cause the death of the game.

In the eyes of many the game is already dead. I'm not saying monthly fee would solve things. I'm simply saying the current model has produced what we currently have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Dreamwind's argument is that GW's revenue model has delinked people's purchase decisions from ANet's investment in maintaining the game. I'm not totally convinced by his data; it's logical to expect that most people that are still posting on a GW fansite intend to buy GW2. I'm willing to bet that they've lost some business over the current state of the game, and that we never observe those people. The mods suppress that sort of negative publicity.

I think it is more the case that people who don't play anymore or are unhappy simply aren't posting about it. I personally expect GW2 to be a success not because of how good Anet is at managing things (I think they are terrible at that), but because of how good Anet is at designing content (they are great at that). And for that reason, many people who know that Anet has terrible management will still buy GW2.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moriz

and judging by the response from this thread, if GW had a subscription fee, there wouldn't be a need for GW2, since Anet would have gone out of business a long time ago.

This is a fallacy that I keep seeing in this thread. The reality is we don't know what would have happened if Guild Wars had monthly fees. The reason being is because it probably would have been a completely different game with a completely different playerbase. All we DO know is how the game has been run now under the current model.

The Drunkard · Nov 25, 2009, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

So? This doesn't disprove the argument that monthly payments confer leverage. You've shown that sometimes companies make mistakes despite that leverage. This doesn't imply that outcomes in GW would turn out this way under a pay-for-play model. We're in the land of "maybe" and "might have been"; anything that would increase the probability of leading to a more desirable outcome can be defined as "good" in that context.

I'm not quoting Dreamwind, please don't lump me together

The way I see it, p2p= players have more leverage but the company doesn't have to listen to its playerbase. If you make the mistake of one bad update your game can fall apart. f2p= you're going to have a lot more subs but you are going to have to keep comming out with more content regularly or else your playerbase is going to deteriorate, and eventually WILL. Based on the way that Anet has handled their playerbase, I do not want Anet to follow the same mistake WAR did since they only released last year and have turned into a mess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Worse, GW proved that there's a finite amount of non-optional new content that you can release before you kill the game. Eventually balance becomes an issue; given a sufficient number of areas and skills to keep track of, the game gets away from the devs' ability to keep ahead of those issues.

This makes me skeptical of getting involved in another long-term F2P game. Those structural issues won't go away.

I'm not sure about that, as long as Anet keeps away from adding to many skills into their game, they have a better chance of keeping the skills under control and areas interesting. I think that Anet had a great idea with dungeons as well as missions, so i'm sure they could keep releasing new areas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale

Now or when it was released?

You just cant compare how things are now in 2009, with how they were in 2005. It's easy to say oh such and such MMO failed or WAR was like that, and AoC did this etc. But they all came when the MMO market had hit saturation. Back in 2005 that had not happened yet.

People do that with new MMO's now. They assume it should have the same amount of content and slickness as WoW did, forgetting it took WoW 5 years to get where it is today.

Since you don't seem to know about WAR, I'll give you the quick version about what I think happened with the game.

- WAR is based on 2 factions, order vs. chaos.
- Each faction has 3 races with 4 professions each
- The order side had two classes that were completly broken, Warrior priests and Bright wizards. The bright wizards could either stack tons of DoTs on everyone, spike for high single-target dmg, or use their pbAoE to literally blow up warbands (6+ people in a group). The warrior priests could sit in the backline and heal their group for large amounts, or tank in the frontline.
- When people started to complain on the fourms about the two classes being overpowered, the CR said they were balanced out fine and that other classes were the source of the problem.
- A couple of big updates hit healing and general damage for all classes except for the bright wizards.
- The other faction kept being overwhelmed in high-end pvp because of the poor skill balancing, many decided to leave because they kept getting killed.
- A large population inbalance has led to many order to leave because they couldn't fight destruction
- Mythic had crafting skills but botched them up because removed the novelty items that each craft so everything was similar
- Mythic could never fix the countless amount of bugs in their game
- Mythic had little high-end content to the game.

I didn't expect a clone of WoW, I wanted a game where the devs LISTENED to the playerbase. Anet seemed to do a fine job before nightfall was introduced, so I don't thing that making a f2p game is going to deteriorate.

Bryant Again · Nov 25, 2009, 09:58 PM // 21:58

I'm not sure if a monthly fee would've prevented such bad game design decisions.

beaverlegions · Nov 25, 2009, 10:06 PM // 22:06

Good job, if you really beleive that GW could have made it like it was at release if it was pay to play you are truly retarded.
Nothing wrong with being retarded, jsut dont make a thread every time you think you have a great idea