Curse

unmatchedfury · Oct 30, 2006, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Love everything about nightfall so far. excellent work. The Artisty continues to be unique and draws me back to the game.

weez · Oct 30, 2006, 09:36 PM // 21:36

Hello

I post here only appr. 1/2-3 months, but now I feel compelled to give my two pennies to the thread and not only a simple thank you (but of course I thank you too for your efforts).

As I see there is an overwhelming amount of crying and flaming and very "clever" commenting from a lot of people on various forum, how bad work has been done, how buggy the whole gw, mostly 12-15 years old people (sorry for the exceptions) are continuously explaining how things should be done etc. Fed up with them. I would like to give a bit of insight to people to understand what exactly they have here to appreciate.

I have been working for a famous software company (sry, no name

for several years now, in a position something like technical leader who must ensure some project or part of the project gets completed, responsible for quality and for work done by others. Anyway, it is not the most important here what I do, more important I have some idea how sw development, customer relations (few years in ticket handling, etc) are going.

I have to say that what Anet is doing here is an extraordinary effort. Let's see the facts.
1. Anet has issued an excellent game, created a franchise and they giving it to people very cheap (compared to other MMORPGs). I assume they started with the approach to attract lot of people with quality work, and they succeeded (so far).
2. Anet is a software company, which has several employees. They must be paid. They need profit.
3. NCSoft is the company, if I understand well finance the development of this game. In exchange they expect also profit. Since they gave the money, they dictate all the rules (ok, I know nothing about the business model what Anet and NCSoft follows, neither anything about their agreement, but lets assume NCSoft dictates everything.

So Anet is in the very incomfortable middle position: have to satisfy customers, otherwise they will turn away from the game (=dont buy expansions). But at the same time profit has to be generated for NCSoft, or they will stop giving their money to Anet. I do not know how many work hour has been posted by Anet employees last year, but I bet it was not 8 hour/day average.

It was told earlier that expansions will follow on half year basis. It is visibly 1st priority for Anet which is not a surprise cause their living is at the stakes. It seems to be also straightforward that someone (=NCSoft) is not satisfied with the money aspect: at least there are couple of - earlier not-planned or at least not-mentioned - new revenue generators: character slots, unlocks, PVP editions. These are clearly showing that Anet needs to find additional ways to maximize profits besides expansions. I do not know about their operating margin, but they obviously looking for more revenue.

Let's see more closely for a moment what is here. 6 month for an expansion. 24 weeks. 120 working days. It is very clear that development is going on for a longer time than this 6 months, although I know very little about game sw industry. Anyway, someone did the work also earlier -> consumed resource from other projects (e.g. Factions, probably Nightfall was well ongoing at that time at least in some early-mid phase).

Now everyone who has the manuscript of game, open it at the end. You will see how many people has been working on it. around 200-250 maybe? Plentty, but see to how many phase has been existing in this project: planning, artistry, programmers, level planning, level building, technical writing, quality insurance (a compulsory requirement at all bigger company), engine testing, level testing. Additionally obviously Anet (Ok, this might be NCSoft) needs support for customer requests. Marketing. Sales. Community (remember Gaile?

. Human Relationship department for all these people. Server leasing, maintanence costs (probably subcontractos, partners costs also lot of money).

It might not be clear to where I wish to get. I just want to get to the Testing part. Considering above scale, what do you think how many people could test the game? 20-30? Now think about the size of the game. 1.4 Million players. Now let's consider the number of testers, and let's consider also the fact, that Anet must work with a highly decreased development cycle due to market pressure (=must make profit), competition (=how many of your friends went to WoW? I have couple) -> in a nutshell: They need to do quality in an increadible short timeframe.

Did they fully succeed? Hardly. Nightfall is indeed full of bugs. My guess that Anet simply had to give up extensive project testing. Preview events for Anet now serves as pre-release test. First weeks of nightfall serves as heavy bugfixing period. Also sticky forum in nightfall subsection shows that Anet is highly relying on the 1.4 Million tester they have. After all the cant hire 100.000 people to test everything. How many update has come since release, what do you think how much nowaday coders are sleeping? Dont complain if you find a bug. Report it to help them. Do you find an exploit? Be clever, use it, but after you got rich

report it to help developers. Every software has bug, and this has many because it must have been done quickly. This doesn't mean this is a bad job. It is a good job. It is a super job and worths every cent. Stop flaming on them.

Guild Wars Nightfall is a tremendous effort from the developers who deserve the credits (and the money

for this!

ekamdu · Oct 30, 2006, 10:37 PM // 22:37

/amen to that man...

i just finished the game, and wow! i am amazed how well this story falls into place with the other 2! ive had so many "but of course, that i didnt think of that sooner!" spinning in my head.

Anet! you guys rock!!!

Verkinix · Oct 30, 2006, 10:45 PM // 22:45

/applaude!

Agreed, Nightfall is one of the best productions I've played to date. Ranks right up there with oblivion and civilization 4 which, in my book, is saying alot! Thanks for listening to the community and doing a terrific job in Nightfall as well as enhancing GW as a whole. The dye system is amazing and the heroes are simply wonderful to have around. Few minor issues, but I wont mention them here.

Thanks again for a fabulous game!

Good job!

Avendiel · Oct 30, 2006, 11:10 PM // 23:10

I think paying the money for the game is appreciation enough. Anet has about $45 worth of "thanks" from each player per chapter.

After that, you are actually helping them out a lot more by complaining (or rather, giving "constructive criticism"

) and helping them identify problems to be fixed so that more people will buy it, rather than indiscriminately kissing ass ^^.

just my 2 cents, lol

ganky · Oct 30, 2006, 11:23 PM // 23:23

"NightFall Is THE best looking, best playing, best achieving MMO out there this year! Good enough to compare to the likes of TES IV: Oblivion in its class.

DeathByBowtie · Oct 30, 2006, 11:35 PM // 23:35

I'm only a smidge into Nightfall (on the next mission after the cemetary), but what I've seen so far has been absolutely stellar. The story is actually very compelling, so I can't wait to get out of school or home from work to learn the next part of it; the new features (heroes, templates, etc.) are all really helpful; the new areas are beautiful; and the new skills and classes are a lot of fun to play (although I admittedly haven't spent a tremendous amount of time playing them). Worth every penny of the $75 (CE + pre-release pack) that I spent on it.

I do, however, have one complaint; as a Computer Science major with a focus in video game design, you're setting the bar way too high for guys like me, who are pretty lazy. Please stop putting out amazing games, so that I can get paid for doing less work.

But, all joking aside, three cheers are in order for ANet. Hip, hip, hooray!

Sir Skullcrasher · Oct 30, 2006, 11:48 PM // 23:48

This game is WAAAAYYYY better than 1 million copies of Factions combined!

Congrat A-Net, keep up the good work!

thedeadwalk! · Oct 30, 2006, 11:53 PM // 23:53

Inscription: "Don't call it a comeback!"
Energy +6 (while Health is below 50%)

I'm loving the humor in Nightfall so much.

malevolence · Oct 30, 2006, 11:54 PM // 23:54

/applaude

Nightfall is really nice, I love it !

Is funny just to see my pvp guild(r7+) playing pve and telling everytime where they are etc.,

I hope that ANET keep working like this !

Yama Sutra · Oct 30, 2006, 11:58 PM // 23:58

A BIG cheer for Anet !!!

After Factions i was curious how Nightfall would be. In my opinion Nightfall is the best chapter. Just love it !

Once again TNX !!

kirgr526 · Oct 31, 2006, 12:20 AM // 00:20

/Cheer.

Thanks Anet, I love it.

BustroQuick · Oct 31, 2006, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Excellent job ANet, well done!

Szechwan Chi Qin · Oct 31, 2006, 01:37 AM // 01:37

Quote:

6 month for an expansion. 24 weeks. 120 working days. It is very clear that development is going on for a longer time than this 6 months, although I know very little about game sw industry. Anyway, someone did the work also earlier -> consumed resource from other projects (e.g. Factions, probably Nightfall was well ongoing at that time at least in some early-mid phase).

Based on an interview with Jeff Strain that I remember listening to prior to Faction's release, Mr. Strain mentioned that Anet had two full size development teams working "leap frog" style, with a year's worth of development on each campaign.

Anyways, back on topic: /cheer!

Angel Develin · Oct 31, 2006, 01:43 AM // 01:43

/cheers
/bow
/kneel
I love it, and "the making of" for CE was cooooooool
/clap

kazjun · Oct 31, 2006, 01:57 AM // 01:57

/cheer

Awesome. Got to get back to playing

Coocks · Oct 31, 2006, 02:16 AM // 02:16

/cheer
Thanks Anet

Am i the only one who took a week off from work so i can play it ? :B

M1h4iL · Oct 31, 2006, 04:00 AM // 04:00

/cheer *
Really loving this chapter, heven't enjoyed GW like this in PVE for long while now, in fact since the first few months of Prophecies.

Tobias Funke · Oct 31, 2006, 04:25 AM // 04:25

/three cheers!
I may I add that Vabbi and the Desolation are by FAR my favorite areas in all three chapters. Vabbi is just plain beautiful. Also, I would buy and play Wurm Wars.

=HT=Ingram · Oct 31, 2006, 06:45 AM // 06:45

Very much agree. Nightfall is everything they promised and more... I am very happy with it and the newly discovered re-playability of the other chapters and Quality PvP with my PLAYER CONTROLLED Heroes...

The fact that all the die hard hold outs are pissing themselves over the new features in Nightfall is icing on the cake...