Curse

Mordakai · Mar 06, 2006, 05:00 PM // 17:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mosch

Right! And I don't know why I should only get 2 slots if the game was definitely calculated with 4! That is the whole problem I have with it

You and I just disagree on this point: Factions, when merged, was not "calculated" to add 4 slots. If anything, there was talk of only having ONE extra slot for merged accounts, but that quickly was replaced with "not yet determined", and now this confirmation from Gaile that there will be two slots.

There might be technical reasons Anet decided Factions won't have 4 slots when merged, it could be a design decision only, it could be economic. Bottom line, we don't know the reasons.

Gli · Mar 06, 2006, 05:08 PM // 17:08

Loviatar, it doesn't matter what you call it. Popular perception will decide what it really is. That's how the world works. If I publish a book, and tape a fork to the cover, I'm not going to be very succesful convincing people it's fork.

They want to sell a product that can be a stand-alone game, so they can sell it to new players. The catch is, one million existing costumers (minus a handful that for some reason choses to buy the fork that can be read as a book) look upon it as an expansion. They want to link their games and have a bigger single game. An expanded game. They're not buying a stand-alone game, they're buying an expansion, regardless of ANet's marketing people. If they're saying it's not an expansion, they're wrong about their own damn game.

Mordakai · Mar 06, 2006, 05:11 PM // 17:11

Can we just agree that for people linking to Prophecy, Factions is an expansion, for those installing it by itself, Factions is a stand-alone game.

In other words, it's both, depending how you install it.

Loviatar · Mar 06, 2006, 05:23 PM // 17:23

and does anybody realize how few people are going to skip Factions because of this?

take GWonline which makes this site look like a rabid fanboi site and even there most of the people will buy Factions according to multiple polls

fansites are visited by only a tiny fraction of the players as they are playing the game.

few of those who visit ever post.

even fewer of those will post regularly.

even on this thread you can cull out 80% of the posts as more than a single post and not all of them are complaints.

this thread is tiny compared to the UAS outburst and the number of leavers will be tiny compared to the leavers over UAS/MORE LEVELS people

Andy_M · Mar 06, 2006, 05:31 PM // 17:31

The point has to be made though.

pigdestroyer · Mar 06, 2006, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Im going with 6... you guys know there are new elites and new armors right? it would be dumb to have separate accounts if you already own gw

Gli · Mar 06, 2006, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

and does anybody realize how few people are going to skip Factions because of this?

take GWonline which makes this site look like a rabid fanboi site and even there most of the people will buy Factions according to multiple polls

fansites are visited by only a tiny fraction of the players as they are playing the game.

few of those who visit ever post.

even fewer of those will post regularly.

even on this thread you can cull out 80% of the posts as more than a single post and not all of them are complaints.

this thread is tiny compared to the UAS outburst and the number of leavers will be tiny compared to the leavers over UAS/MORE LEVELS people

That whole post of yours is just a pointless observation. People post on forums to express their individual opinions. They're not less valuable because a silent majority is assumed to be apathetic to them. Post on! Let the criticisms flow, we need to speak up for the silent masses!

Loviatar · Mar 06, 2006, 05:45 PM // 17:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gli

That whole post of yours is just a pointless observation. People post on forums to express their individual opinions. They're not less valuable because a silent majority is assumed to be apathetic to them. Post on! Let the criticisms flow, we need to speak up for the silent masses!

not so

the point has already beem made here and on other sites.

most people are ranging from very happy to get 1 slot for each new profession to i dont like it but the game is so good i will get (grudgingly) chapter 2.

there is no huge silent majority on this issue or a lot more would be posting on it.

a tiny fraction of 1 % would have flooded the forums (which it hasnt)

Gli · Mar 06, 2006, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

not so

the point has already beem made here and on other sites.

most people are ranging from very happy to get 1 slot for each new profession to i dont like it but the game is so good i will get (grudgingly) chapter 2.

there is no huge silent majority on this issue or a lot more would be posting on it.

a tiny fraction of 1 % would have flooded the forums (which it hasnt)

EHHHH? There's no silent majority because the majority is silent?

Mordakai · Mar 06, 2006, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Only time will tell how this decision will effect sales.

If I had to guess, though, I would guess it will not effect sales much as all.

As I've said, if you're buying Factions as an expansion, you already expect less Professions than you got in Prophecy. Less slots is a logical extension of that.

I would aso guess that depending on the initial reaction to Factions will determine whether more people buy it or not. People currently planning on not buying it could change their minds, and vice versa.

But to put the numbers in perspective:

Over 1 million Guild Wars players. This site has 61,819 members.

That's around 6% of total Guild Wars players, not an insignificant amount, but by no means a majority!

Katari · Mar 06, 2006, 06:14 PM // 18:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

and does anybody realize how few people are going to skip Factions because of this?

take GWonline which makes this site look like a rabid fanboi site and even there most of the people will buy Factions according to multiple polls

fansites are visited by only a tiny fraction of the players as they are playing the game.

few of those who visit ever post.

even fewer of those will post regularly.

even on this thread you can cull out 80% of the posts as more than a single post and not all of them are complaints.

this thread is tiny compared to the UAS outburst and the number of leavers will be tiny compared to the leavers over UAS/MORE LEVELS people

The polls in various fan sites indicate that it is not an insignifigant percentage. Oh, this thread is tiny compaired to the outbursts following the Pront Bond nerf, and the AoE nerf. Do you think that makes them any more valid?

Oh, and if Factions did add four slots when merged, then it would in effect, add four new classes. One of the few ways A.Net has to tell when someone has purchased both GW:F and GW:P is by seeing what accounts get merged. In effect, they are penalizing us for doing so, buy reducing our character slots. Access to the 'expansion' areas is a trival feature, and one that in all cases that I can think of, is assumed to be a given.

Four slots with acess to each part.
Six slots to access to full game. Ok, so where did they go? Well, they were sacrificed so we could have acess to the full game with the rest.
But access to the expansion is a given?
Then they were removed for...?

Yes, I am considering it an expansion here, because thats what people who own GW:P consider it to be. It's not relevent if someone bought the games in the other order, because to a GW:F owner, GW:P would be viewed as an expansion.

Well, it's gotta be for fininacal reasons, and not the sort that will make players look favorably on A.Net. If there were some sort of crazy-hidden-cost, I feel A.Net would have said so. There is a lot of discontent here, and a simple post could difuse it. But no, I think the limitation is there to intice people to buy more than one account. I'd wadger the percent of players with two accounts is a tiny minority, and certainly very few of them are 'casual' players. If this is targeted at more 'hardcore' PvE players, why not sell character slots? They're the same sort of people who would be intersted in paying more for the game, so let them. I'd wadger theres a ton of people who want more slots, would pay for them, but consider a second account a poor option.

Again, I'm promoting the idea of selling slots, because I don't think it would be wise for A.Net to go back on what they promised for GW:F. It would not look good for them to change the product description when pre-orders are already out. So I don't feel they can safely go back on their word, but adding the option to buy slots would be another matter.

Loviatar · Mar 06, 2006, 06:16 PM // 18:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gli

EHHHH? There's no silent majority because the majority is silent?

it only counts if people refuse to buy and that particular reason is the cause of not buying.

since this has been bounced back and forth i think we can see past each other until the cows come home.

what will actually decide things will be sales figures and all of us will have to wait to see how it turns out. (since my chrystal ball is foggy)
i will happily buy it and you will not buy it.

at least we agree on something

Gargle Blaster · Mar 06, 2006, 06:25 PM // 18:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

Also, does anyone here think they did not get their money's worth on the Original Guild Wars?

Yes, we should have got one slot for every primary profession.

Mordakai · Mar 06, 2006, 06:34 PM // 18:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari

The polls in various fan sites indicate that it is not an insignifigant percentage. Oh, this thread is tiny compaired to the outbursts following the Pront Bond nerf, and the AoE nerf. Do you think that makes them any more valid?

Flawed logic. These are not scientific polls, and may or may not represent the views of the million plus Guild Wars players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari

Oh, and if Factions did add four slots when merged, then it would in effect, add four new classes. One of the few ways A.Net has to tell when someone has purchased both GW:F and GW:P is by seeing what accounts get merged. In effect, they are penalizing us for doing so, buy reducing our character slots. Access to the 'expansion' areas is a trival feature, and one that in all cases that I can think of, is assumed to be a given.

Technically, they are NOT reducing our slots, they are expanding them by two. There's no way to currently get more than 6 slots on a single account.

I do see your point that adding more slots would, in essence, give people more Professions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari

Well, it's gotta be for fininacal reasons, and not the sort that will make players look favorably on A.Net. If there were some sort of crazy-hidden-cost, I feel A.Net would have said so. There is a lot of discontent here, and a simple post could difuse it. But no, I think the limitation is there to intice people to buy more than one account.

Hmm. Well, that's possible, but it could also be a design decision or unknown technical reason. I agree a simple post on GW's website would certainly help clear the mystery.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari

Again, I'm promoting the idea of selling slots, because I don't think it would be wise for A.Net to go back on what they promised for GW:F. It would not look good for them to change the product description when pre-orders are already out. So I don't feel they can safely go back on their word, but adding the option to buy slots would be another matter.

Well, here, I'd have to disagree. If Anet, for whatever reason, suddenly gave us 4 character slots (BEFORE the game is released) even with linked accounts, I don't see why anybody would complain. I wouldn't complain about getting more slots, even though I probably wouldn't even use them... except maybe to store PvP templates or something.

Now if Anet gave people 4 slots for merging after some people already installed the game separately... well, that would piss those people off good and proper!

Loviatar · Mar 06, 2006, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari

If there were some sort of crazy-hidden-cost, I feel A.Net would have said so. .

actually they would not.

why give the competition an advance look at a problem you have discovered.

also if the cost was negligable or zero they would simply dish out the slots to avoid all this

there is a cost that we dont know about and they are not willing to post it for the competition to read about.

or they are willing to risk return sales for no reason except they flipped a coin and said 2 merged slots.

Katari · Mar 06, 2006, 06:56 PM // 18:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

Technically, they are NOT reducing our slots, they are expanding them by two. There's no way to currently get more than 6 slots on a single account.

Expanding them by two, but you paid for eight. Since each account seperatly has four. Being able to move characters between content is generaly considered a given, so why then do we loose two character slots for this 'advantage'?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

Now if Anet gave people 4 slots for merging after some people already installed the game separately... well, that would piss those people off good and proper!

Yeah, that would be bad, very bad. I wasn't suggesting that either.

I was suggesting they start selling additional slots after Factions is out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

also if the cost was negligable or zero they would simply dish out the slots to avoid all this

The 'cost' would be the loss of sales due to people buying fewer double copies. But an insignifigant amount of people do this anyway. Certainly not the 'casual' players.

Lovitar, the enter key does not replace periods. )

Mordakai · Mar 06, 2006, 07:04 PM // 19:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari

Expanding them by two, but you paid for eight. Since each account seperatly has four. Being able to move characters between content is generaly considered a given, so why then do we loose two character slots for this 'advantage'?

By this logic, Factions should have 8 new professions as well.

There's really two different products for sale:

One is Factions, the stand alone game. It has 8 Professions, and 4 slots.

The other is Factions, the expansion. It has 8 Professions, and 6 slots when linked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Katari

The 'cost' would be the loss of sales due to people buying fewer double copies. But an insignifigant amount of people do this anyway. Certainly not the 'casual' players.

What are you trying to say? That Anet will actually make more money by limiting the slots? How many people do you think will actually buy more versions for the slots alone (unlinked)?

If I was more into Conspiracies, I would say this all plays into the rumor that the CE will give a bonus slot. I don't believe the rumor, but it would be nice if it were true.

Zehnchu · Mar 06, 2006, 07:57 PM // 19:57

I read the majority of the posts, I see a lot of people feel they are getting cheated while others are ok with the idea of six slots for linking. Others are figuring cost vs storage on severs which is a small part of an over all cost. There are costs that everyone takes for granted.

For one dose Anet rent servers or do they buy their own, and they have to rent or buy extra storage because they need a redundancy back up just incase a drive fails all your stuff isn’t lost. Then you have bandwidth well if a T1 ling costs $1,500 (T1 - 1.544 megabits per second (24 DS0 lines) and an OC3 line can cost anywhere from $20,000-$45,000 a month, which I don’t think they will be running they would be running a OC192 - 9.6 gigabits per second (4 OC48s) for the mass amount of data which is a very large sum.

Then you have the cost of the building and everything that goes with it, computers to make the game and of course software. The people who make the game need to be paid plus there are a few other things too. All that to bring you a game for a one time cost of the game with no monthly fee to play. And you still feel you are not getting what you paid for.

There was no guarantee that you would get a total of eight slots for linking this was widely discussed, and all the while that everyone knew that it was going to be a stand-alone game. Chapter 3 will be the same you want twelve slots for linking all three games.

Gargle Blaster · Mar 06, 2006, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zehnchu

I read the majority of the posts, I see a lot of people feel they are getting cheated while others are ok with the idea of six slots for linking. Others are figuring cost vs storage on severs which is a small part of an over all cost. There are costs that everyone takes for granted.

For one dose Anet rent servers or do they buy their own, and they have to rent or buy extra storage because they need a redundancy back up just incase a drive fails all your stuff isn’t lost. Then you have bandwidth well if a T1 ling costs $1,500 (T1 - 1.544 megabits per second (24 DS0 lines) and an OC3 line can cost anywhere from $20,000-$45,000 a month, which I don’t think they will be running they would be running a OC192 - 9.6 gigabits per second (4 OC48s) for the mass amount of data which is a very large sum.

NO!!! yall dont realize how little space is used to store char data!!! Trust me i work in IT. --there is more data in this post.

Server/bandwidth money is a non issue! its about being able to play the game we pay for. the Box suggests that you can play over 30 diffrent char types however you only get 4 (and really there are only exactly 30 diffrent char types) -- im sorry but this is just sad. i have been hoping that this would improve... however it looks like this game will forever be short 3 char slots (1 for pvp + 2 for the other primary char classes)

SilentAssassin · Mar 06, 2006, 09:07 PM // 21:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordakai

As I've said, if you're buying Factions as an expansion, you already expect less Professions than you got in Prophecy. Less slots is a logical extension of that.

man you as a minister, geez you should know it is a FULL game, GW:F isn't an expansion at all, it will cost 50 euros and I don't call that a price for an expansion !! Its a full new game.

actually the problem is not that 2 slots is not enough for GW:F the problem is that 4 slots isn't enough for having 6 professions, it isn't fair either that ppl who just buy the game as a standalone get 4 slots.

another time I want to play the game in MY way and thats playing all primary profesions, and I am not the only one... why would you argue against ppl who want more character slots... geez