Curse

bitchbar player · Nov 23, 2009, 02:16 PM // 14:16

you dont need a gm to get back stuff you merched, you could just have a buy back option at the trader.

Chocobo1 · Nov 23, 2009, 02:16 PM // 14:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadowspawn X

All this is a bunch of assumptions on your part. We could have very well payed to play and gotten the same scenario. The policies and administrative decisions that many players disagree with are not financially driven. The refusal to nerf SF back into the stone age is not financially driven. Jeff Strain and those founders were the brains of Blizzard, they knew the pitfalls of a MMO and made a game with their vision to avoid those same pitfalls. As far as restoring characters it is just an administrative hassle. Every moron that merchants a couple of ectos by mistake would be lined up for a character rollback. Perhaps a restore could be even automated where you have simple restore points, but the decision to omit this function more than likely was not financial.

Bolded = so true. Gw could be really great again, just Anet doesn't really care anymore. It never had to end like this. It's not like Anet is going bankrupt anytime soon, they could afford to put a little more care in the game.

bloodvayne · Nov 23, 2009, 02:18 PM // 14:18

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 never had to release new professions and new skills with each campaign.
Hell, they never had to release campaigns every 6 months either, 1 a year would have done fine, instead of just rushing them out.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't be playing, AT ALL if there was monthly fees, benefits to the system or no benefits.

Shadowhaze · Nov 23, 2009, 02:24 PM // 14:24

I can see your points and some I agree on...it would be nice to have such things (GMs, constant support, etc). Really though, I would not have even bought the game if it had been pay-to-play. I've been down that road before and for me it just wasn't worth it.

Abedeus · Nov 23, 2009, 02:25 PM // 14:25

Quote:

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.

I thought so too. But then again, it's NCSoft. Aion is P2P, and let's see....

1. No GMs. Or at least no visible ones, in EU servers.
2. Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhh no.
3. Same. We don't get to say anything about balancing.
4. Wut? Care to explain?
5. Heh, yeah, CMs... One on holidays after doing NOTHING after the release, the other one only cares about stupid stuff like "Michael Jackson Dance" or "Tamat's Avatar Contest!!".

trialist · Nov 23, 2009, 02:26 PM // 14:26

Erm, don't kid yourself. GW's biggest selling point was and probably still is, that it has no monthly fees. If you played the betas and were there at GW's launch, you should know that GW had very little advertising done.

Much of the advertising was done for them by word of mouth. And you know what those three little words were? No Monthly Fees. That was how GW got to be the accidental success that it was.

Had those words been pay to play, it might have just died within months, like so many of the other MMOs present today.

Just to put things in perspective since you seem to have rose-colored glasses on. GW's pve didn't even have Sorrows Furnace at launch and if you played the betas and went as far as they let you for pve, you already completed about a third to half of the game. Why would you pay monthly for that when WOW was there?

Shanaeri Rynale · Nov 23, 2009, 02:29 PM // 14:29

The original plan was to release a new 'chapter' every 6-9 months. The customer's expectation (i.e us) was that each one would include new professions and new skills.

I remember sorrows coming in, and that too was a rod for Anets back. They could'nt then really release huge amounts of paid for content with no new professions or skills as they had just done a huge content update for free.

Look at the grief eotn got because it had no new professions and only a few new skills. Now add to that on a 6-9 month cycle as disapointment with each new chapter would grow and grow and you see the problem Anet faced.

Add new professions and skills and make the game so complicated you can't balance it, or don't add them and cheesing off your customers every 6-9 months.

But paying, even a small amount to keep things fresh and updated while you work on your major content every 2 years/18 months or so seems to be a way out of that trap. Anet decided on the other way. Put GW on life support and focus everything they had on GW2, hoping it would be able to break that cycle

What I was thinking was that maybe the pay to play route would have been a better one to take, rather than the slow, painful decline we are seeing now.

Highlander Of Alba · Nov 23, 2009, 02:32 PM // 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale

I don't doubt Anets founders intentions, but Blizzard seems to be doing very well pitfalls and all.

As this part a little of topic .ill just answer this part on Blizzard.
If you were a D2 player and awaiting the release of D3 it will be some time as............Torchlight is a clone of D3in most ways and its being released in under 2 years. Blizzard now has to remake D3 thats why no more informaion forthcoming.

On topic as I have a few accounts, and did not mind paying one of for those
Also slots .panes ect .they are still making money btw mabe not as much but still making money.

So over the plus 4 years this game has cost me Zero re playtime and Anet found a market that produced a worthy income to them by adopting the F2P

How many games thats f2p that you get updates ect content for free

So in my mind the made the game available to anyone who bought the game..play/go aways for 3 months come back and you continue where you left of.

nologic · Nov 23, 2009, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chocobo1

Bolded = so true. Gw could be really great again, just Anet doesn't really care anymore. It never had to end like this. It's not like Anet is going bankrupt anytime soon, they could afford to put a little more care in the game.

Actually they do care but programming takes time and they put the majority of the staff on GW2. You have seen a few updates i like the new dhuum atleast it dragged down the SC farming a few minutes which is good.
New quests for Halloween even thou i didnt enjoy them as much as the old one.

The reason i started playing I like the graphics and the plot line both for prophecies, factions, nf and eotn.

Pay to play is probably gonna make a lot of people loose interests I prefer buy to play, and a shop if I want more char slots and a few other goodies they add now and then.

qvtkc · Nov 23, 2009, 02:35 PM // 14:35

No. I'm sorry. If GW was released as pay-to-play back in 2005, it would have lost the one thing that made it unique to a very large section of the playerbase. And doing it now would only mean massive ragequitting. And no sales for GW2.

On the other hand if that was done back then, very likely, we would have all the things mentioned in OP post. Because we would be playing WoW, or some other pay-to-play MMO.

Riot Narita · Nov 23, 2009, 02:36 PM // 14:36

Pay to play is not a business model I will ever support. Monthly fees = no sale. GW did not turn out perfect, but regardless I've enjoyed it for well over 4 years. I seriously doubt monthly fees would have made GW more enjoyable - the reality is I would never have even played it to find out.

It also seems to me, that when a game is pay-to-play... the majority of players are absolutely unforgiving. If it is not absolutely perfect from day one, they abandon it... go play WoW instead or something, and the game either dies within months, or is forced to go free-to-play. (Yeah yeah, there will always be die-hard players, but not enough to maintain "critical mass").

Publishers drool over WoW's revenue, and dream that they can do the same... but they can't. They missed that boat a long time ago, and now WoW will probably always have an effective monopoly on that business model. The sooner they wake up and follow GW's business model, the better. It's their best (and maybe only) chance to compete in a crowded market.

bloodvayne · Nov 23, 2009, 02:39 PM // 14:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shanaeri Rynale

The original plan was to release a new 'chapter' every 6-9 months. The customer's expectation (i.e us) was that each one would include new professions and new skills.

Look at the grief eotn got because it had no new professions and only a few new skills. Now add to that on a 6-9 month cycle as disapointment with each new chapter would grow and grow and you see the problem Anet faced.

Add new professions and skills and make the game so complicated you can't balance it, or don't add them and cheesing off your customers every 6-9 months.

They could have done something better.
Release a campaign once a year. The campaign could add new skills, but MUCH less skills than what Factions and Nightfall have released.
Just add a handful of skills per core profession (a little more than EotN obviously)
And then only add ONE new profession per campaign. The new professions would get more skills than core professions, based on how many campaigns they're released in.

If it was necessary to have 2 professions each campaign, they didn't always have to be NEW.
Factions: Assassin and Ritualist
Nightfall: Ritualist and Paragon
Utopia: Dervish and Assassin
<campaign name>: Paragon and <new profession>

Just an example, but they could have done so much better with the balance issues, and still had a steady stream of new campaigns.
Adding so many skills per campaign was a bad idea.
The idea to add so many skills every 6 months..... was a bad idea

TRIaXOR · Nov 23, 2009, 02:40 PM // 14:40

Pay to play? er, no thanks, if I wanted to pay a sub I would have been playing Lineage II and now Aion not GW

and I would hazard a guess that most of the membership would have not played GW if it was a monthly sub as there is now so many free MMORPGs to play..

If you think otherwise, your living in lala land..

JR · Nov 23, 2009, 02:46 PM // 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fril Estelin

Don't think it could have worked. P2P MMO means fighting against the "giants" on their own ground, thus a much higher risk.

This. ^

The fact that ArenaNet has a business model that can rely on box sales gives them a lot of stability. Too many MMOs bank their future on the hope of subscriptions. When there aren't as many subscribers as they hoped, they have to cut back on their ambitious plans for content. Cutting back on their plans means the game is ultimately not as interesting, and more people leave.

It's a make or break vicious circle, and I'm just not sure anyone but WoW can pull it off anymore. You get such a huge amount of content available from day one that people are going to keep playing and paying regardless, where in other MMOs they will eventually hit endgame and get bored (see WAR, Aion, AoC...).

If you compare the value we get from Guild Wars and the value someone gets from WoW against the money paid for either, we are getting a pretty even deal. If you like Guild Wars so much that you would like to pay ArenaNet even more so they can make more content, good for you! Maybe they should set up a PayPal.

ArenaNet has (what was) a revolutionary business model, and it works well for them. At a time when the genre is plagued by dying MMOs I would love for ArenaNet to stick with it.

tasha · Nov 23, 2009, 02:48 PM // 14:48

Every game has its day, every game declines. Its something that needs to be accepted. Its fair to discuss and maybe blame the management of the decline but don't have any illusion that it won't happen. With pay to play it will probably be worse as soon as people think they aren't getting their money's worth they stop their sub. WoW is the exception, not the rule. Its unrealistic to expect that any MMO will receive that kind of attention.

I don't have a lot else that I want to contribute to this discussion as I truly believe that the buy to play nature of GW is what makes the game but I wanted to bring up the point of character restores.

It is blatantly open to abuse. Its easy to envisage a scenario where someone through some (not so)complex scheme is able to make ANet staff duplicate items for personal gain. A group gets a load of valuable stuff on an account, passes everything to another account (aka fakes a hack), appeals to staff, gets the stuff back. The rest of the items have been passed around and broken up between different people and players... I know there's holes in this example, but its something that is a possibility. Anet would have to set up a raft of rules as to what could be restored and then you're not necessarily much better off than you are now.

Shanaeri Rynale · Nov 23, 2009, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Quote:

they have to cut back on their ambitious plans for content. Cutting back on their plans means the game is ultimately not as interesting, and more people leave.

How is this any different to what we have now today?

We need to cast our mind back to when GW1 was first released in 2005. WoW had'nt been out long, still had issues with wait times etc etc and had nowhere near the level of clout it has now.

I'm not arguing that GW was'nt fantastic vfm, i'm saying that their business model is flawed because it cannot deliver what people expect of an MMO(which whether it was intended or not GW is now) in 2009 and in the long term.

pumpkin pie · Nov 23, 2009, 03:00 PM // 15:00

flawed business model. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA . if its flawed the company would have closed down by now.

Arena Net specifically says they DO NOT want to be like other mmo, so if you expect it to to like any other MMO. your playing the wrong game.

Shanaeri Rynale · Nov 23, 2009, 03:03 PM // 15:03

Would Anet still be trading if it was'nt for the NCsoft link? Dunno, i've not got the figures to hand to work it out.

Gut feel says no, or they would have needed to move to a different way of funding(new chapters, another quickie game, p2p etc etc)

Xenex Xclame · Nov 23, 2009, 03:04 PM // 15:04

If GW was p2p it would not have anywhere near the ammount of people playing it and numbers sold would be very small compared to how many have been sold now.

Even so, GW does not have enough in it to warrant people paying a montly fee.

One way Anet could have given us more for GW1 is when they realized GW2 was gonna take longer then they thought the could have send some people to work on GW1 and come up with a mini expansion/update that you had to buy,if they did this about i dunno in july of this year,people would be happy to give Anet their money.

But no Anet is lazy, and that is the ONLY reason why we arent getting enough crap for GW1.

Take for example the skill update we were suppose to get,the now we will probably get in jan,Any thinking person would think that when you say you werent gonna make the deadline, you would let people that you arent gonna make it, not let the date arrive then let people wonder what has happen and then tell them , oops were sorry we didnt get it ready in time (more like we didnt even start haha sucks to be you)

Or something they probably never even thought about.

Ow no the update is gonna be late at this pace,lets borrow a couple of people from gw2 crew and let them help us a bit,Its not like anyone will know GW2 got delayed a few days because of that.

Why would i pay for GW1 or 2 for that matter,not having the pay is the only reason im not playing WoW.

Riot Narita · Nov 23, 2009, 03:08 PM // 15:08

And another thing. OP seems to think the monthly fees mean everything will smell of roses. Well, I'm sure it DOES bring real benefits... but personally I think there is a "dark side" to monthly fees:

As a business, the publishers will want to keep people playing (paying) as long as possible. So what kind of design decisions could that lead to?

How about... provide juicy rewards later in the game... but place many obstacles in your path to reach them, so you must invest a lot of time (money) to reach that stage of the game. In other words, built-in grind from the outset.

As a player, monthly fees seems like holding your game characters hostage... except that even though you pay the ransom demands every month, the characters remain "hostages". They will never taste "freedom".

By the time you reach the more rewarding parts of the game... you are reluctant to stop playing, because you invested so much time and effort - you don't want that to be "wasted".

Then there is peer pressure. Every expansion adds extra rewards and character power, and if you don't grind for them, you get left behind... your characters become sad and weak in comparison. If you let that happen then again, you "wasted" the time invested so far. So you feel compelled to keep playing (paying). At this point you are a junky.

GW largely (!) avoided this type of scenario... low level caps... no rare and uber-powerful armour or equipment... etc etc. Not perfect of course, but still way better than most in my opinion.